topic Re: vmunix: file: table is full in Operating System - HP-UX

vmunix: file: table is full

Franky Leeuwerck — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 12:58:16 GMT

I took an ascii dump from an Ingres database on a HP-UX 10.20 machine.
After that I see this message appearing in the /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log file :
beksaunx vmunix: file: table is full

Doesn't look healthy to me ? What can I do ?

Franky

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Thierry Poels_1 — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:08:54 GMT

dag Franky ;)

check "sar -v 2 2" & you'll find that "file-sz" has hit its limit. Increase kernel parameter "nfile" if required.

good luck,
Thierry.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Patrick Wallek — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:10:40 GMT

This is due to the file table filling up. This is controlled by the kernel parameter nfile.

If you are seeing this on a regular basis, you probably need to increase nfile.

Remember that increasing any kernel parameter requires a reboot in order for the change to take effect.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:11:09 GMT

Hi Franky:

Your kernel parameter 'nfile' needs to be increased. This parameter limits the number of open files you can have, system-wide. You can follow it with 'sar -v 5 10' which will report 10 samples, 5-seconds apart for your file (nfile) table among others. See the man pages for 'sar' for more information.

You can also track 'nfile' utilization with the [t]able action in 'glance'.

For more information on 'nfile', see:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/os/KCparam.Nfile.html

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Mark van Hassel — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:11:40 GMT

Hi Franky,

You reached the maximum number of open files limit. Increase the nfile kernel parameter using SAM-kernel configuration-configurable parameters.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Wim Rombauts — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:14:01 GMT

Thierry is correct.

And since you will need to modify the kernel anyway, sar -v also shows the inode table. if that seems rather full, increase it also. You can't open enough files if you can't open enough inodes. It' not a one to one relationship, but it may be a good idea to consider an increase of the ninode kernel parameter.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Deshpande Prashant — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:16:16 GMT

HI
Looks like time to increase the kernel parameter "nfile"

You may want to check this out.

http://us-support.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=4879bc6610e5e91382/screen=ckiSearchResults?mode=id&searchString=KNC032597004

Thanks.
Prashant.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Franky Leeuwerck — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:19:32 GMT

Thanks all for the quick replies
What does it mean if the system bounces upon this limit ? Get streams disconnected causing possible inconsistency ? Or does it only slow the processes down ?

Franky

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Thierry Poels_1 — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:24:34 GMT

hey Wim,

the ninode kernel parameter is a bit tricky. This paramater only reflects to HFS filesystems; on HPUX11 this is only /stand which is a very small filesystem. So on most system ninode can be or should be set relatively low (1000-2000). A ninode usage of 100% will/should not hurt system usage.

regards,
Thierry.
go for it Belgium ;))

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Franky Leeuwerck — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:31:12 GMT

This is the output of the sar command.

# sar -v 2
16:28:56 text-sz ov proc-sz ov inod-sz ov file-sz ov
16:28:58 N/A N/A 117/276 0 476/476 0 719/800 0
16:29:00 N/A N/A 117/276 0 476/476 0 719/800 0
#

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Thierry Poels_1 — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:31:45 GMT

hi again,

results of hitting the nfile limit are unpredictable, no more file handles can be allocated:
- single process aborts?
- system process aborts?
- system crash?
- if you're very unlucky system/file corruption?
- ...

regards,
Thierry

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Wim Rombauts — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:44:43 GMT

Well Thierry, you're right, but IF you are using HFS AND ninode is five times smaller then nfile and you're hitting the limits of nfile, I would increase ninode also. I have had performance problems with a low ninode parameter in the time I was still using HFS ona server.

Re: vmunix: file: table is full

Franky Leeuwerck — Wed, 03 Oct 2001 13:52:23 GMT

Ok folks,

Thanks all for the replies. This made things clear enough to me, so I can solve the problem.
This forum is too great.

Special greetings to the Belgians.

Franky