topic cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1 in Operating System - HP-UX

cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Daehnrich — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:13:51 GMT

Dear Forum User,

i have a Problem on a HP-UX 11.00 Maschine, the Maschine has 64 MB RAM.

The Failure is "ksh: cannot fork: too many processes" On the System is a Oracle Database installed and configured.

The Maschine was restart in the Single User Mode, the nproc (800) and the MAXUSER (100) Settings have been changed.

Error Message are now :Table is Full

We take the old Kernel, and change the Kernel. We bring the System in the Init 1.

We will make a new Kernel..... but the System puts the Error Masseges on the screen:

"ksh: cannot fork: too many processes" at init 1! Circa 20-30 Processes are worked at that time.

Can you help me?

with kind regards

Soeren Daehnrich

PS: Sorry for my bad English.

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

T G Manikandan — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:23:27 GMT

fork too many processes are because of

nproc--->number of processes on the system
maxuprc--->maximum number of user processes

When you have changed those and you are getting a message Table is full

you have to tune the kernel parameter nfile.

Modify nfile and then rebuild the kernel

nfile is dependent on maxusers.
Just check the value of the parameter for maxusers.

Increase it accordingly.

Thanks

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Cheryl Griffin — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:24:28 GMT

Check maxuprc. Maxuprc represents the maximum number of processes any one user may have running at one time.

Cheryl

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Sajid_1 — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:25:00 GMT

hello,

did you change the value of 'maxuprc' kernel parameter ? that may solve the issue. btw, 64MB is a very less amount of memory, try adding more memory too.

hth

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

T G Manikandan — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:25:50 GMT

Check for the kernel parameters here

http://www.docs.hp.com//hpux/onlinedocs/os/KCparams.OverviewAll.html

Might be the user has created a program where it is spawning up processes.
Check them using ps -ef|grep

Thanks

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Pete Randall — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:26:31 GMT

Did you really mean 64MB RAM? That is an incredibly small amount of RAM to try to run an 11.0 system in.

Pete

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Fragon — Tue, 06 Aug 2002 11:31:57 GMT

Of course you must increase your phisical memory first!
Besides nproc & maxuser , I think you must set swapmen_on to 0 to disable pseudo-swap.
And you should add more swap space so as to create more processes!

-Gerald-

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Daehnrich — Wed, 07 Aug 2002 07:16:23 GMT

Good Morning :-)

the discribe System, run 2 Month's with the Kernel and the Oracle Database, without Errors!

For the Poster "64 MB RAM not enough for HP-UX 11.00"

The System stand at INIT 1!, and go down.

Thank's for the Statement up to the time.

THX!

regards S.D.

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Santosh Nair_1 — Wed, 07 Aug 2002 07:33:05 GMT

Just out of curiosity, what do you bring up in run-level 1? Do a ls -al /sbin/rc1.d/S* should show all the startup scripts that get kicked off in run-level 1.

Also, what is the last process that starts up before you start getting these errors?

Finally, you mentioned that you modified some kernel parameters. Stupid question but have to ask, did you move the new kernel into place, i.e. /stand/vmunix?

-Santosh

Re: cannot fork: too many Processes on Init 1

Frank Slootweg — Wed, 07 Aug 2002 10:08:29 GMT

I think you made an error in setting nproc or/and maxusers. You seem to say that you set them to 800 and 100, but I think you set them incorrectly (far to low).

So boot with the old kernel and check with SAM that you have set nproc and maxusers to what you think you have set them.

By the way:

> Error Message are now :Table is Full

That is probably not the full error message. It probably says:

proc: table is full

The "proc" part refers to the process table, i.e. the table dimensioned by the nproc parameter.