Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:23:19 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Kip Macy <kip@lyris.com>
To:        Gregory Sutter <gsutter@pobox.com>
Cc:        stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: kern.maxfiles and kern.maxfilesperproc
Message-ID:  <Pine.SOL.4.05.9909211616350.16568-100000@luna>
In-Reply-To: <19990921161540.D49731@forty-two.egroups.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Thanks. Although having maxfiles == maxfilesperproc might make sense for
special cases e.g. a machine completely dedicated to one process -- It is
dangerous at best for the general case. Any malicious program can make a
machine running FreeBSD non-functional. The default should be set with the
average user in mind, namely protecting him from himself. 


					-Kip


On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Gregory Sutter wrote:

> On Sun, Sep 19, 1999 at 03:16:40PM -0700, Kip Macy wrote:
> > Is kern.maxfiles the total number of files that can be open on the system
> > at one time? If so it seems very silly that by default it is the same
> > number as kern.maxfilesperproc -- meaning that any process can use up the
> > total number of files available to the system.
> 
> I asked -hackers the exact same question a month or so ago, and
> received the same answer -- "use login.conf".  I didn't like the 
> answer, because I think that no single process should ever have
> control of all possible open files, and login.conf is not a
> sensible place for changing a bad default behavior.  There should
> always be some left over for other processes, so that vital
> activities like logging and root logins can occur.
> 
> The subject was dropped and I modified my boxes so that
> kern.maxfiles > kern.maxfilesperproc.
> 
> Greg
> -- 
> Gregory S. Sutter                   Heisenberg might have been here.
> mailto:gsutter@pobox.com
> http://www.pobox.com/~gsutter/
> PGP DSS public key 0x40AE3052
> 
> 




To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.SOL.4.05.9909211616350.16568-100000>