*BSD News Article 96022


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From: brian@shift.utell.net (Brian Somers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: ifconfig limit reached?
Date: 23 May 1997 10:15:21 GMT
Organization: Awfulhak Ltd.
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Message-ID: <5m3qnp$ic4@ui-gate.utell.co.uk>
References: <michelle-2205971722230001@monalisa.primelogic.com>
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In article <michelle-2205971722230001@monalisa.primelogic.com>,
	michelle@primelogic.com (Michelle Brownsworth) writes:
> Today I added the 57th ifconfig line to our server's rc.local file as part
> of the routine adding of a virtual host.  I HUP'ed named and was greeted
> by a nameserver core dump and complaints of "too many files open."  And
> the nameserver was torched, naturally.  I rebooted the entire server, to
> no avail.  Thinking I'd made an error in one of the DNS files, I checked
> my work carefully and everything looked kosher; the forward,
> reverse--everything--seemed to be USDA-grade fine.  I recompiled the
> kernel after increasing the number of users from 20 to 50 and rebooted
> again.  No dice.  Mutter...
> 
> Since this state of affairs was precipitated by adding the new virtual it
> seemed logical to remove the additions that I'd made.  On a hunch, I
> commented out the ifconfig I'd added for the virtual, rebooted, and
> everything was back to normal.  Whew!
> 
> So have I run up against some limit on the number of IP addresses that can
> be assigned to the network card?  Do I need to change some configuation
> variable that will increase the number of IP assignments the card can
> handle?  I've looked in the online docs, but haven't found anything that
> addressed this particular problem.  (OTOH, panicky readers sometimes miss
> things.)
> 
> I'm running 2.1.5 on a P133 with 32 MB parity RAM.  As belt and
> suspenders, I've just ordered another 32 MB of parity RAM and a second
> network card.  I'm figuring if worse comes to worse, and it's not just a
> matter of increasing a variable to allow more IP assignments on the first
> card, the second network card will gain me another 50+ assignments.

You could try increasing kern.maxfiles.  This is usually the same as
kern.maxfilesperproc - around 360 on a "10 user" machine.

    # sysctl kern.maxfiles=500
    # sysctl kern.maxfilesperproc=500

I dunno if this will help.

> .\\ichelle
> --------------------
> Michelle Brownsworth
> System Administrator
> IMS, Inc.

-- 
Brian <brian@awfulhak.org> <brian@freebsd.org>
      <http://www.awfulhak.org>
Don't _EVER_ lose your sense of humour !