Jan wrote:
> dbrett wrote:
>> I have a RH 6.2 server, which seems to be unable to keep up with the
>> load it is under. I have to keep rebooting it about every other
>> day. One of the first clues I have is there too many files open and
>> can't do another operation.
>>
>> How do I find out how many files are open and by what programs? Is
>> it possible to increase the number of files which can be open?
>>
> lsof may be a good place to start - it lists all open files; it is a
> LONG list! Perhaps you should run it at intervals (and save the
> output) to see if there is a single program that runs amok.
>
> /jan
You may be running out of file descriptors. Open tcp sockets and things like Apache and database servers are prone to opening a large amount of file descriptors. The default number of file descriptors available is 4096. This probably needs to be upped in your scenario. The theoretical limit is somewhere around a million file descriptors, but a number much lower would be more reasonable. Try doubling the default number and seeing if that takes care of things. If not, double that number and see how it works. Here is the command to do this on the fly:
echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
To make this happen each time at boot, edit your /etc/sysctl.conf file and add the following line:
fs.file-max = 8192
Brad Sites
