Subject: "Too many open files", any way to achieve ulimit -n?
From: [email-masked] (Paul English)

10 Jun 1998 05:18:01 -0700
Message-ID: <13693.53758.616000.258854.cygnus.gnu-win32@GUMBLE>
Reply-To: [email-masked]
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
To: [email-masked]

I have an issue with some perl scripts, and occassionally some links,
which terminate with a "Too many open files" message when running
under bash (bash 2.01.1(2) on Cygwin32 19.1 under Windows NT 4.0 SP3).
This only happens on a filesystem which is exported by Samba from a
Solaris server.

Our MIS department have suggested increasing the maximum number of
file descriptors which can be open, i.e. ulimit -n 256.  Unfortunately
ulimit -n seems to be fixed at 32.  Is there any way of increasing
this limit?  I'd even consider building bash from source if
necessary.

Note that the file descriptors in the perl script are explicitly
closed after use, but must remain in use for some time after being
closed allowing the number of open descriptors to mount up.  A
sleep 0.7 command immediately after the close stops the problem
occuring, but slows the script significantly (sleep 0.5 is
insufficient). Running the same script on the same file tree works
fine from a Solaris workstation accessing the server via NFS.
Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about links failing, at least
not while using make.  Fortunately this is relatively rare, occuring
only during times when the network is slow and/or the server load is
high.

Has anyone any ideas for a fix/workaround?

Thanks in advance,
Paul.

-- 
                                 ,    , 
                                ("\''/").___..--''" -._ 
Paul English                    `9_ 9  )   `-.  (     ).`-.__.') 
[email-masked]   (_Y_.)'  ._   )   ._  . ``-..-' 
                              _..`--'_..-_/  /--'_.' .' 
                             (il).-''  ((i).'  ((!.-' 

-
For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to
"[email-masked]" with one line of text: "help".