Re: Linux / PostgreSQL question

On Wed, Sep 13, 2000 at 01:04:32PM -0700, Mitch Vincent wrote:
> I was just doing some huge operations with PostgreSQL and it all crashed out
> with a "too many files open" message plastered all over the place..
> 

This is really a Linux question, not postgresql, but you knew that...

(I'm keeping hackers on this message, so if it comes up again, the
answer's in the archives with the question)

> Now in /proc/sys/fs/file-max there is only 4096, that limit could have
> easily been reached. Does changing the value in the file effectively change
> the limit system-wide? I changed it and rebooted but it was set right back
> to 4096.. I've been out of the Linux loop for a long time (FreeBSD junkie
> now) so I don't know how to set that up to permanently change the limit.

Almost right. Why'd you reboot? It's a runtime configuration. Proc is not
a file system, it's a pseudo-filesystem interface to kernel internals.

Just do something like:

echo 32768 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max 

And you may need to up the number of inodes, too:

echo 65536 > /proc/sys/fs/inode-max 

You'll probably want to put these in rc.boot, or rc.local, or something, 
to set this at boot time, as well.

Ross

-- 
Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> 
NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
Computer and Information Technology Institute
Rice University, 6100 S. Main St.,  Houston, TX 77005