vmunix: proc: table is full errors.

[Gino Castoldi_2]

Hi,

HPUX 11.11 OVO, Oracle, MC/SG

We recently received these errors in the syslog.log log ile.
"vmunix: proc: table is full".
There were 352 processes running at the time
of this error on the server.
Note: maxusers is set to '32'.

What kernel values need to be updated to prevent this problem from happening again?

10 points to any good answer.
TIA, Gino

[Sridhar Bhaskarla · Accepted solution]

Hi Gino,

This is obviously the system process table 'nproc' overflow. To verify it run

sar -v 2 20

and see the proc-sz column.

I wouldnt' worry about maxusers parameter. That's a old standard and it may unnecessarily increase parameters like ninode. Go ahead and bump up the 'nproc' value by around 25% of whatever your need is.
Also check your file-sz column in the above output and see if it also needs an increase.

Sometimes faulty scripts may spawn unnecessary processes. Do a 'ps -ef' and see if there is anything suspecious before increasing the kernel parameter.

-Sri

[Steven E. Protter]

The only thing I would worry about concerning maxusers is that out of the box the kernel uses it to calcuate nproc

two choices

increase maxusers
take the forumula out of nproc and nfile and hard code these kernel figures.

A kernel compile and boot will be required.

SEP

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Gino,

IF NPROC was greater than 352 at the time, the problem was - maxuprc - which is the max processes per user. The default is 60, I believe & a user like oracle can quickly consume that amount.
So definitely check maxuprc
kmtune -q maxuprc
and if you have a "generic" user that owns a lot of processes in an application, then increase it.

HTH,
Jeff

[Rita C Workman]

As the others have said...that error simply means that the kernel parm nproc hit max.

Now it could be your running more than before, or it could mean than something or someone is running more than they should.

You can extend the parm itself, or you can extend the maxusers parm. The maxusers parm is by default a calculation and affects the settings of other parms (nproc included). Since yours is set at 32, why just up it to 50.
It will change your other setting automatically and you can then monitor from there.

Best way to learn about these is to read over the kernel parm document and see how things are affected:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/onlinedocs/TKP-90202/TKP-90202.html

[Moderator edit: Removed the broken link. Please refer to https://support.hpe.com/]

HTH,
Rita