From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Sep 27 09:05:14 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 248D0106568A for ; Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:05:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ari@ish.com.au) Received: from fish.ish.com.au (eth5921.nsw.adsl.internode.on.net [59.167.240.32]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A0AB58FC1A for ; Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:05:13 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ari@ish.com.au) Received: from [10.29.62.12] (port=64599) by fish.ish.com.au with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1KjW47-0001sv-2F; Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:26:15 +1000 Message-Id: From: Aristedes Maniatis To: Jeremy Chadwick In-Reply-To: <20080927030204.GB40195@icarus.home.lan> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v929.2) Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:05:08 +1000 References: <98425339-23F8-4A90-8CF1-2E85DD82D857@ish.com.au> <20080927030204.GB40195@icarus.home.lan> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.929.2) Cc: freebsd-stable Stable Subject: Re: sysctl maxfiles X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:05:14 -0000 On 27/09/2008, at 1:02 PM, Jeremy Chadwick wrote: > Anyway, I'd like to know why you have so many fds open > simultaneously in > the first place. We're talking over 11,000 fds actively open at > once -- > this is not a small number. What exactly is this machine doing? Are > you absolutely certain tuning this higher is justified? Have you > looked > into the possibility that you have a program which is exhausting fds > by > not closing them when finished? (Yes, this is quite common; I've seen > bad Java code cause this problem on Solaris.) Well, there was a runaway process which looks like it is leaking fds. We haven't solved it yet, but the fact that the maxfiles per machine and the maxfiles per process were so close together was really causing us grief for a while. > You're asking for trouble setting these values to the equivalent of > unlimited. Instead of asking "what would happen", you should be > asking > "why would I need to do that". > > Regarding memory implications, the Handbook goes over it. Unfortunately I've been unable to find it. While we fix the fd leak I'd like to know how high I can push these numbers and not cause other problems. Ari Maniatis --------------------------> ish http://www.ish.com.au Level 1, 30 Wilson Street Newtown 2042 Australia phone +61 2 9550 5001 fax +61 2 9550 4001 GPG fingerprint CBFB 84B4 738D 4E87 5E5C 5EFA EF6A 7D2E 3E49 102A