Login quota error

[Victor_5]

I met the following error when I login in, no problem for root, no problem for other users, only for this one "abc"

login: abc
Password:
Please wait...checking for disk quotas
could not execute quota command
/etc/profile[31]: cannot fork: too many processes
/etc/profile[48]: cannot fork: too many processes
/etc/profile[83]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[11]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[13]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[14]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[15]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[20]: cannot fork: too many processes
${HOME:-.}/.profile[37]: cannot fork: too many processes

Good thing is user can login finally, but it took a couple of minutes which we can not accept it. I knew generally this error is related with NFS, but I am not using NFS, I also tried to change

chmod 444 /usr/bin/quota

but no any difference, any idea?

[Alan Casey]

This is a kernel resource problem:

The error cannot fork: too many processes

may be caused by the kernel parameter "maxuprc" being set too low. Maxuprc is
the maximum number of processes any one user can have running at one time.

Maxuprc is usually set to 64, which can be somewhat restrictive
for heavy window and background process users. Setting maxuprc to
128 (or larger) and rebuilding the kernel usually fixes the problem.

[Sajid_1]

Did you try increasing the value of these kernel parameters: maxuprc, nproc, maxusers ?

[Victor_5]

Thanks for your replies, yes, I also thinking of the "maxuprc" and "maxuser", the current value is:

maxuprc 75
maxuser 250

I did not change them for long time. But I am wondering:

1. The machine was running perfectly, why suddently having login problem yesterday?

2. I have a lot of other machines which have the same kernal setting with this one, why only this one has the problem?

Why I am asking that because I am not 100% for sure it is kernal problem, the machine can not affort downtime, on the other hand, if I change it, I also need time to sync the kernal setting on all other servers which I don't wnat to do so.

More input?

[Pete Randall]

Victor,

I don't think maxusers is going to have any effect on this, other than causing several other parameters to be bumped up because of its use in formulas. The likely culprit here is maxuprc. Is this user kicking off some application when logging in? If it worked yesterday, then what did this one user change yesterday?

Pete

[Sajid_1]

hello,

what about doing an 'su -' to this userID? Did you change anything on the users profile file? How many users are logged in the system? Check the system profile and users profile and check which command it's complaining about.

[Victor_5]

"su -" has the same problem. Anyway, I found something, I am working on that, I will get you feedback soon.

Thank you all, have a great weekend!

[Sajid_1]

Victor:

okay, then I think you have to carefully look at the $HOME/.profile file and the scripts which it is running at the login time. Check if any of the process required more resources. The best possible method will be renaming that profile and copy some other working user's profile here and try loggin again.

gl,

[Victor_5]

Thanks for your kindly reminder, Sajid, I will.