Too many open files

[Wilfred Chau_1]

Hi all
We have a situation where the oracle alert log said "HP-UX: 24: Too many open files".

But nfile is only 15% utilized and maxfiles is set to 2048.

Do you know of any reason this may happen?

thanks

[harry d brown jr]

"Too many open files" = maxfiles and maxfiles_lim, not nfile

live free or die
harry d brown jr

[rick jones]

if you want to see how many files a given process has open there are a number of ways:

1) install and run glance from software.hp.com - it has a show process open files screen
2) install and run lsof pinting it at the process
3) use tusc to trace system calls and look at those taking/giving file descriptors

[Tony Scully_2]

Wilfred,

A side issue, but with Oracle it's often worth increasing the number of file locks, nflocks, as well.

As noted above, this is likely to be the number of open files for the oracle user itself.

T

[Indira Aramandla · Accepted solution]

Hi Wilfred,

The error that your are experiencing â HP-UX: 24: Too many open files".

On HP-UX, increase the Unix kernel parameter maxfiles, then regenerate the Unix kernel. This parameter should be set to approximately 60 per instance. It may be set to the default 64. Increasing this parameter allows your shell to open the number of files it needs in order to complete the operation. 64 is not a large enough number to accomplish some tasks with Oracle, and increasing it will not pose an undue burden on the system.

And also increase the UNIX kernel parameters nfile, maxfiles, and nofiles (number of open files) by 50 or 100, then regenerate the UNIX kernel and reboot the machine using the new kernel.

[Isralyn Manalac_1]

Hi Wilfred,

You should be looking at maxfiles and maxfiles_lim. Since the alert log was triggered by Oracle, you may want to ask Oracle for their list of recommended kernel parameter values specially for maxfiles and maxfiles_lim.

Good luck!

Regards,

Isralyn