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From: Tony Griffiths <tonyg@OntheNet.com.au>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: ifconfig limit reached?
Date: Sun, 25 May 1997 12:16:49 +1000
Organization: On the Net (ISP on the Gold Coast, Australia)
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Message-ID: <3387A111.1F1B@OntheNet.com.au>
References: <michelle-2205971722230001@monalisa.primelogic.com>
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To: Michelle Brownsworth <michelle@primelogic.com>
Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41748
Michelle Brownsworth wrote:
>
> 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
[snip]
> 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.)
The named error "too many files open." basically means, well... there
are too many open files! Since you are running 2.1.5 (oldhat) I suspect
that the default number of open files per process is 64 and since a few
are used for "overhead" named has finally used up it's quota.
Type the command 'limit' (or 'ulimit' depending on your shell) and you
will see what I mean. Also, the command 'netstat' (no args) will show
all of the open TCP/UDP sockets which, amazingly enough, count as open
files.
On our VWS (also 2.1.5 but move to 2.2.1 is currently in progress), I
put the 'hack'-
echo -n ' named (256 FDs)'; ulimit -n 256; named $namedflags
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
into the /etc/rc startup script to get around this problem.
>
> 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.
Another card and more memory will not solve the problem, although the
more memory will help if you are not running the multiple-virtual-server
version of Apache.
Tony