Cannot open ELM

[krizevac]

When I try to start elm the system returns:

"Reading in /var/mail/root, message: 11975

Couldn't allocate enough memory! Message #11975."

HP-UX 11.00 on L2000
Help me please!

[Sanjay_6]

Hi,

Look like the program is unable to open the mail file because it is too big and you don't have enough memory/swap available. What is the size of the root file in the mail directory.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Craig Rants]

How about modifying a few parameters on you box?

Increase the maxdize kernel param or increase swapspace. Try the kernel param first, then go to swap space.

GL,
C

[krizevac]

Thx for responding.
This is the
ll /var/mail/root:

-rw-rw---- 1 root mail 106424238 Jan 15 21:29 /var/mail/root

[Craig Rants]

Wow, that is a big file. When was the last time that mail file was read? You may want to just chop it in half if you don't mind missing some emails. Also I spelled maxdsiz wrong. The spelling in this entry is correct.

C

[Steven Sim Kok Leong · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Move /var/mail/root to another directory.

# mv /var/mail/root /tmp/root.oldmails.txt

Subsequently recreate /var/mail/root.

# touch /var/mail/root

Your elm should not encounter any more problems with /var/mail/root cleared.

You can subsequently vi or tail the root file residing now in a separate directory to view your previous old messages.

# vi /tmp/root.oldmails.txt

OR

# tail -200 /tmp/root.oldmails.txt

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Uday_S_Ankolekar]

Hi,

Incase if you don't required those e-mails you can delete it saftly.
cd /var/mail , here you will find the files with indivduals UID. Remove the one with name root.

Goodluck,
-USA..

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Craig is right. You may want to look at your maxdsiz kernel paramter. Look at your swapinfo -t. It shouldn't be near 100%.

-Sri

[krizevac]

SWAPINFO -t output:
Kb Kb Kb PCT START/ Kb
TYPE AVAIL USED FREE USED LIMIT RESERVE PRI NAME
dev 1048576 0 1048576 0% 0 - 1 /dev/vg00/lvol2
dev 4096000 0 4096000 0% 0 - 1 /dev/vg00/lvol_swap
dev 5120000 0 5120000 0% 0 - 1 /dev/vg00/lv_swap
reserve - 2102044 -2102044
memory 3228656 1618508 1610148 50%
total 13493232 3720552 9772680 28% - 0 -

MAXDSIZE output:
maxdsiz 128974847 128974847 Static N/A Max Data Segment


Are they correct?

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

It could be due to ulimit then as your swap is looking fine as well the maxdsiz paramter.
Type in ulimit and look at the value. If you are using ksh, you should get the default value of 4194303 which is unlimited. If not, take out the entry from your profile that sets the ulimit value to low. Or ask your administrator if he/she is restricting ulimit for users.

-Sri

[krizevac]

ulimit returns value: unlimited