From owner-freebsd-questions Sun Mar 21 15:36:45 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 962571521D for ; Sun, 21 Mar 1999 15:36:40 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id KAA13897; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 10:06:19 +1030 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.3/8.9.0) id KAA07314; Mon, 22 Mar 1999 10:06:18 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19990322100617.Z429@lemis.com> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 10:06:17 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Dave Rossow , freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Too many open files (was: freebsd won't go multi-user) References: <003301be738a$a779a1c0$05c809c0@versa> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.93.2i In-Reply-To: <003301be738a$a779a1c0$05c809c0@versa>; from Dave Rossow on Sun, Mar 21, 1999 at 03:04:56AM -0800 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sunday, 21 March 1999 at 3:04:56 -0800, Dave Rossow wrote: > Hi, can anyone help point me in the right direction? I'm having a problem > using FreeBSD 3.1. I installed from the latest CDRom using the 'impatient' > method. I've setup two systems, one as a database server, the other as a > webserver. Neither are as yet in active production use yet. The install > worked fine and everything seemed fine. However, sometime shortly after I > started installing various software packages I started getting syslog > message like the following: > > Mar 21 02:00:24 data syslogd: /var/run/utmp: Too many open files in system > Mar 21 02:00:24 data last message repeated 3 times > Mar 21 02:00:24 data /kernel: file: table is full > Mar 21 02:00:24 data syslogd: /var/run/utmp: Too many open files in system > Mar 21 02:00:24 data last message repeated 3 times > Mar 21 02:00:24 data /kernel: file: table is full > Mar 21 02:00:24 data syslogd: /var/run/utmp: Too many open files in system > Mar 21 02:00:24 data last message repeated 3 times > Mar 21 02:00:24 data /kernel: file: table is full > Mar 21 02:00:24 data last message repeated 12 times This message should be self-explanatory. It doesn't answer the question "which files are open?", of course. You could use lsof (Ports Collection) for that. > I get the same messages on both systems and after trying to reboot one of > them, I find it will now only boot into single user mode. What happens when you try? > Is this some kind of blocking factor problem? No. > Do I need to re-create the filesystems or something? No. > Anybody experienced this before? Yes. > Any help would be greatly appreciated. The simple answer is to say "rebuild your kernel with a higher MAXUSERS". 100 is a good value; there are problems if you go beyond about 250 in 3.1, but they'll be gone in 4.0. MAXUSERS is a rather silly name for parameters which influence the system globally, including the maximum number of open files. Having said that, you might find that your problem lies elsewhere. You won't know that until you know what files are open (see lsof above) and whether they should be open. I'd guess that if you're using this system as a database server, they probably should be open. Greg -- When replying to this message, please copy the original recipients. For more information, see http://www.lemis.com/questions.html See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message