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Date: Sun, 3 Aug 1997 11:26:41 -0600 (MDT)
From: Marc Slemko <marcs@znep.com>
To: "Andrew N. Edmond" <edmond@shaman.lycaeum.org>
cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Too many open files in System!
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On Sun, 3 Aug 1997, Andrew N. Edmond wrote:

> I am writing a multithreaded application (using MIT pthreads 1.6) that
> MUST have thousands of open files, and nearly 4000 open sockets.  I'm
> getting this error when I try to accept on this many sockets:
> 
> 	 error on accept: Too many open files in system
> 
> I set CHILD_MAX and OPEN_MAX to 4098 in the kernel, and I can't find a way
> to get accept to open any more sockets.  Any ideas?

You say you need 4000 sockets and thousands of files.  That adds up to
>4098 descriptors.  

Have you tried increasing CHILD_MAX beyond 4098?  Well, you can just do a
sysctl to change kern.maxfiles and kern.maxfilesperproc which should have
the same effect.  Then check your ulimit -n and increase it if necessary,
eg. 

	$ su
	# ulimit -Hn unlimited
	# ulimit -n unlimited
	# ulimit -n

and be sure it is high enough.

What version is this on?  Any sample minimal source code to demonstrate
the problem you are having?