Debian sid - kernel modules do not compile - too many open files
Hi,
Sorry - a bit long perhaps. But I have no idea what has happened and how
should I fix the problem in a 'proper' way.
The story: Recently I noticed a weird problem. I'm not sure when it has
happened, but since some time the kernel modules do not compile /
initramfs do not update on kernel update.
The first symptom was that after installing linux-image-3.14...-amd64
the system did not boot. Well, it boots when I select the previous
kernel. At the time I thought it's systemd related - perhaps I miss some
libraries, after all it's sid.
But today I tried running virtualbox - first time since a while - and it
did not start - it could not build kernel module.
After short investigation I found the reason: lots of errors:
ERROR: failed to load symbols from /lib/modules/.... too many open files
Tried to google it out - no success initially, then I found that the
open file limits might be an issue:
$ ulimit -a
...
open files (-n) 1024
...
I decided to give it a chance and increase it:
# ulimit -Sn 4096
Now the module has built, I have reinstalled the kernel 3.14 - t has
updated the initramfs correctly this time.
Now the question - WHY did it happen? Previously everything has been
working OK. So either the file limit has changed or more files are being
opened. Or something else. Any ideas?
How should I fix it? I considered increasing the open file limit with pam:
/etc/security/limits.conf
* soft nofile 4096
however I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do. And what is a
'reasonable' value?
Kind regards,
Michal
--
Michal R. Hoffmann
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