Configuring kernel parameters.

[Mitchell Gaddy]

I have a DBA who is having issue with an oracle database. He wants me to increase the nofile limit (2048) which he see's when doing a ulimit -a. I think that limit is referring to the kernel parameter maxfiles. He wants to increase the number of files a process can have open.

Now if I see there is a maxfiles maxfiles_lim and nfiles are all associated with each other.

my current values are
maxfiles 2048
maxfiles_lim 2048
nfiles 130000

I would like to change the value of the maxfiles but I'm not sure which one. Changing the maxfiles would require a reboot but changing the maxfiles_lim will not. If I change the maxfiles_lime would that resolve his problem and allow his oracle processes to open more files.

[Senthil Kumar .A_1]

Hi Mitchell,

I believe just increasing the maxfiles_lim is sufficient. The info I got was when I went through its man pages. I'm quoting the defnition of maxfiles and maxfiles_lim over here, which is quite self explanatory...

QOUTE

MAXFILES

maxfiles number of files a process is allowed to have open at any given time. It is possible for a process to increase its soft limit and therefore open more than maxfiles files.

Nonsuperuser processes can increase their soft limit until they reach the hard limit, maxfiles_lim.

MAXFILES_LIM

maxfiles_lim specifies the system default hard limit for the number of open files a process may have. It is possible for a nonsuperuser process to increase its soft limit, maxfiles, up to this hard limit.

END QUOTE

I'm providing the links for further help...

http://docs.hp.com/en/B3921-90010/maxfiles.5.html

http://docs.hp.com/en/B3921-90010/maxfiles_lim.5.html

Regards,
Senthil Kumar .A

P.S: since u noted that maxfiles_lim is dynamic hence no reboot required, I would suggest just change maxfiles_lim and get ur setup working for now, You can set the maxfiles to the desired value, when you get a change window for your server in future.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

In your case, I would increase maxfiles to 3072 and maxfiles_lime to 4096.