SUMMARY: too many open files (includes a WARNING)

From: Nigel Sharp (sharp@noao.edu)
Date: Wed Sep 02 1992 - 20:10:10 CDT


Firstly, re my complaint about an index, most people suggested Answerbook.
Although I found the error message, there are absolutely NO hints as to
how to solve any of the problems. And it's painful running on a 16M SS1
(and I remember when 16M was a LOT of memory !).

The error "too many open files" is not the fault of OpenWindows but is a
shell limitation. I must have been close to the limit under Sunview, and
OW just pushed me over (e.g. olvwm has one open descriptor per "desktop").

In the cshell, use the command "limit descriptors nnn", where nnn is larger
than the default of 64, and <= the maximum of 256. This also works for tcsh.
In other shells, apparently it's not possible without kernel work.

WARNING: I added "limit descriptors 192" to my .cshrc and things went well
for a few days, until I tried an X-windows task which had worked well before,
and it failed with "select error: Bad file number". The error discussion
said "non-existent file, or read/write to a file open for write/read only".
After a lot of trials (having changed MANY things this week), I finally
remembered my new "limit" command. Changing back to 64 allowed this task
to start up again. Beware of old tasks with fixed sizes in the "select"
system call !

GRIPE: I am EXTREMELY grateful for the existence of this list, but rather
disgusted that Sun's OS and documentation are so appallingly bad that
this list is necessary. Why are there so many patches, and why are so
many of them not incorporated into new releases ? Why are the messages
so uninformative, and why are there no hints about solving the problems
in the message "explanations" one CAN find ? Now I have to fight SunPC,
which refuses to work in only one circumstance (I may be posting again !).

Finally, some people think System Manager is a promotion away from System
Administrator ! I have no idea why they started calling us Administrators,
but I for one like neither the extra syllables nor the connotations.

Thanks to (I owe you each a drink):
kalli!fourx!kuma3.Japan.Sun.COM!kevins@fourx.Aus.Sun.COM (Kevin Sheehan {Consulting Poster Child})
Dieter Muller <dworkin@merlin.rootgroup.com>
Jeff Bacon <bacon@mtu.edu>
jfy@cis.ksu.edu (Joseph F. Young)
kalli!upstage!glenn@fourx.Aus.Sun.COM (Glenn Satchell)
trdlnk!mike@uunet.UU.NET (Michael Sullivan)
ia@st-andrews.ac.uk (Ian Angles)
heiser@tdw901.ed.ray.com (Bill Heiser)
sgp@phyast.nhn.uoknor.edu (Steven G. Parker)
Mike Raffety <miker@sbcoc.com>



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