Re: too many open files

["Joe Emenaker" <jemenake@mail.cob.calpoly.edu>]

>i've recently reinstalled my debian system and i am now
>getting the following error message:
>
>Jan 12 09:00:15 random amd[1162]: setmntent("/etc/mtab", "r+"): Too many
>open files
>
>any ideas, or pointers to the fm are welcomed.


The kernel's out of file handles. Go to /proc/sys/kernel and look at
"file-max" as compared to "file-nr" as well as "inode-max" compared to
"inode-nr". I think "nr" is the number currently in use... but I could swear
I've seen it go higher than "max".

Anyway, the solution is just to put larger numbers in the "max" files. In my
/etc/init.d, I've got a file called "setmaxfiles.sh" that contains:

   echo "4096" > /proc/sys/kernel/file-max
   echo "12288" > /proc/sys/kernel/inode-max

Then, I made a symlink to it from /etc/rcS.d/S37setmaxfiles.sh so that it
will update the kernel structures every time it boots (as it goes through
single-user mode).

- Joe