Re: Too Many Open Files On System
On Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 10:00:35PM -0500, Ken Januski wrote:
> Mike Ward wrote:
>
> >Firstly, I apologize for having no real details on this.
> >
> >I'm running Debian Unstable, and seemingly randomly, I'll go to run a
> >program or save a file or what not, and I'll get an error to the
> >effect of "too many open files on system". In one case, I rebooted to
> >try and solve this, and within 5 minutes of starting X, it started
> >that again.
> >
> >That brings me to the next part - Sometimes (often), it seems that
> >it's a simple case of shutting down another program. In the
> >aforementioned case, it was Internet Explorer running under Crossover
> >Office. Another one was when "ls" returned "Segmentation Fault" while
> >I ran "tail -f" on the apache error log. If I shut down tail, it
> >worked fine. Started tailing again, and again "ls" would Seg Fault,
> >but after a reboot, it's never happened again.
> >
> >In a bit of frustration, I didn't think to write down what file (ugh),
> >but some commands and programs would say that a certian library
> >couldn't be opened. That also is usually soved by shutting down a
> >program that seemingly has nothing to do with the one that's reporting
> >the problem.
> >
> >
> >
> >Again, I apologize for having next to no *real* information on this
> >problem, but I will indeed post back with some now that it's become a
> >problem rather than a minor annoyance. Any ideas are appreciated.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> I don't have an answer just a similar experience. But I did discover
> that it was over 100 nmbd samba files, discovered through use of ps,
> that gave me the clue.
>
> I never did discover what spawned all the nmbd processes. But they were
> the source of the too many open files errors I believe. On the other
> hand maybe i was wrong and someone will correct/enlighten me.
>
>
Look at the program lsof (LiStOpenFiles). lsof lists open files and
the processes that are holding them open. lsof output should help you
figure out which process/program is causing the problem. I, of course,
suspect Internet Explorer. It doesn't come from a source that I
trust. You can install Mozilla Firefox, or Opera, which is non-free,
on unstable. Both work fine in Sarge, which I'm using.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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