what is running on the machine? anything that uses a lot of memory?
it sounds like your system is running out of memory. all of those commands you listed require a fork to run (bash has to fork, then exec the new program). you would still be able to use bash internal commands (like "cd"), but that won't get you very far. if could also be that you're running out of free file descriptors, but i think that's supposed to give a different error message to the system. i've most often seen that message on systems that are using all the memory (either on purpose or from programs that have memory leaks). -tcl. On Sun, 30 Dec 2001, Dan Egli wrote: > There's been a couple of times lately that this has happened. I'm lost as to > the cause. > > All connections to the outside world will stop. So I go over to the console, > and load up the local login I keep (root is always logged in via tty2). I do > a netstat to see if something is hitting me. But instead of getting the > netstat result I get a message saying something to the tune of "fork: > resource unavbailable". This occurs for ANYTHING, REGARDLESS OF IF IT FORKS. > i.e. ls will return this. ps will return it, ANYTHING. I cannot even do a > clean reboot. Only solution is to cold boot and let it fsck the drives. THEN > all is well. > > Has anyone else seen this? How do I fix it? > > I'm using 2.4.10 kernel, custom compiled to include reiserfs support on > RedHat 7.1 > > Thanks in advance > Dan > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Redhat-list mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list > _______________________________________________ Redhat-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
