File Table Overflows

[Managed Services]

I'd be grateful if you could please provide some help with regards to table overflows.

Is there a command which can be run on the system to flush these out without going for a re-boot?

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

My first thought is to increase at least the nfile kernel parm !
I don't know by head if other parms are involved, but if yiu use sam to increase nfile and a formula is involved with other parms, sam will let you know.

C.

[RAC_1]

This is caused by nfile kernel parameter hittingg the set limit. The real time usage can be checked as follows.

sar -v 5 5
glance -t.

If it is hitting the limit, you should tune the kernel parameter, which is dynamic and you willhave to reboot the machine.

Without rebooting, check which process/applications are opening the files. You can stop those processes/applications you do not need, so that the usage of nfile drops. But as long trem measure go ahead and increse the value of nfile and rebuild the kernel.

[Mark Grant]

The table hasn't "overflowed" because it's full of old stuff. The table has "overflowed" because the system has attempted to add an entry to a table but the table isn't big enough. In other words, you need to increase the values of some kernel parameters. All those to do with opening files would be a good starting point.

[Managed Services]

Thanks for the replies on this.

I guess I should have added more information on the initial post - apologies.

We've recently updated the kernal with regards to the max files etc. What appears to have caused the problem was a process that was still running from yesterday afternoon. We've killed this off but it doesn't appear to have cleared the files.

I was led to believe you could run a command that would clear out the table overflows without going for a re-boot.

[Mark Grant]

The file table is a table of open files. If a process is killed, all the files it had open are closed and the entry in the file table freed. I would suggest that either the process has not died or it was not the process causing you a problem.

I would be interested in more information about exactly what errors you are getting where and when. It might be that the problem you think you have might not be the one you really do have.