NFS: too many files open?

[Brad Andriese]

Machine 1: G40 HP-UX 10.10
Machine 2: L2000 HP-UX 11.00

When I try to copy directories (with files in them of course) from Machine 1 to Machine 2 via an NFS mount point I get an error on some directories that says:
Cannot create: Too many files open

The directories have about 2GB of files in them, about 800 files total.

What could be causing this?

Basicly I'm trying to migrate some data from one machine to another, without using a tape drive. How should I be doing this? I tried tar, but that didn't seem to help.

Thanks,

-Brad

[Rita C Workman]

Here's a thread with more details....it looks like you need to adjust your xargs...

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x106937f45ef7d4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

Hope it helps,
Rita

[Mladen Despic]

Brad,

For what you are trying to do, I would likely use 'tar'.
Why doesn't it work? Where does it fail? Any error message?

You could use 'lsof' to observe open files on "Machine 1" and "Machine 2". You could also use Glance to monitor open files as well as system table utilization. Perhaps a kernel parameter should be increased. But I would rather not re-configure the kernel if the only purpose is to migrate a directory.

[Mladen Despic]

Brad,

If 'tar' fails because the size of the tar would be
greater than 2Gb, it may be due to the maximum
file size limitation under 10.10. If that is the case, maybe the following will work:

1. Configure your 11.00 system as NFS client so that you can access the directory on your 10.10 system.

2. Run tar from your 11.00 system and save the output to a file under a local directory on your 11.00 system

3. If #2 works, then you should be able to extract from your tar file.

HTH

[Bill Hassell]

A much, much faster alternative to tar, cpio and NFS is ftp. It can copy all files in a single directory, and with a little scripting, can be programmed to descend through a hierarchy of directories. ftp is unique in that it measure the transfer rate and adjust data windows to make best use of the connection. tar and cpio (and old NFS) cannot handle large files (biggere than 2 Gb).