/bin/cp: Too many open files in system

[Russ McGinley]

I'm trying to do a cp from one server to another, and get the "Too many open files in system" error. I've searched the net and found resolutions for everything except HP-UX. Anyone have a fix for this?

Thanks,
Russ

[Pete Randall]

Russ,

You can try increasing the "nfiles" kernel paramter.

Pete

[A. Clay Stephenson]

You are not hitting the maximum system-wide files limit but rather the per process limit. The kernel tunables for this are 'maxfiles' - the soft limit and 'maxfiles_lim' - the hard limit.

If you are running the POSIX shell, a ulimit -a (nofiles) will display the limit.

[Pete Randall]

Ahh! Thanks, Clay.

[S.K. Chan]

You simply have to increase "maxfiles". Use SAM to bump up the kernel value. Maybe double the value and see if that helps.

[Sajid_1]

hello,

This error message usually comes because of a Kernel parameter value- maxfiles. You could increase this using SAM and reconfigure the Kernel.

HTH

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Russ:

There are actually several kernel parameters that create boundries for the maximum number of open files -- 'maxfiles', 'maxfiles_lim', 'nfile' among them. Have a look here for a concise summary and a better understanding of the interrelationships:

http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/939/KCParms/KCparams.OverviewAll.html

In particular, see the section headed "Configurable Open or Locked Files Parameters".

Regards!

...JRF...