topic Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage in Operating System - HP-UX

How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Shafinaz Syed — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:55:06 GMT

Hi,

How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage on a particular day, let say 2 days ago?

This error occurs 2 days ago on my system and leads to database to shutdown - HPUX-ia64 Error: 23: File table overflow.
Upon checking, my nfile and ninode value needs to be increased.

Appreciate feedback.

Thanks,
SS

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Ganesan R — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:04:15 GMT

Hi,

#sar -v 5 5 -> is the command to see the real time usage. You have to schedule the scripts available at /usr/lbin/sa directory to store the historical data.

see "man sa1" to know more details.

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

SUDHAKAR_18 — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:29:55 GMT

try with #kcusage

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Dennis Handly — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:32:50 GMT

What OS version?
On 11.23, you can use kcusage(1m) to see the usage.

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Ulrich Windl — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:01:41 GMT

If it weren't broken "kcusage -m ninode" would display a history of "ninode" (supposedly the maximum for each day). However all the values except the last one seem to be zero. That's for the last few OE Releases of HP-UX 11.31. Either noone did notice, or no-one did care to fix it.

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Dennis Handly — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:26:12 GMT

>Ulrich: Either no one did notice, or no-one did care to fix it.

No one uses HFS anymore??

Re: How to check "nfile" and "ninode" usage

Bill Hassell — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:55:25 GMT

You would also see the nfile error in syslog.log. You should double or triple the current value of nfile. If your system is growing then nfile will always be too small.

ninode is primarily used for HFS filesystems which you probably do not have, and is usually too large (based on obsolete formulas). sar -v 1 will show ninode as 100% full after a few days but this has always been very misleading. The measurement does not show the number of inode entries that can be reused. Leave ninode at 2048 and you'll be fine. The error 23 refers only to nfile.