Have you considered increasing the open files limit? Have a look at the
ulimit command. The default is sometimes not enough.
Cheers,
Igor
On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 4:00 PM, Ben Welsh <ben.we...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm managing a pgsql --> django --> mod_python --> apache machine that
> serves no media, but handles the postgres memcached and apache part of the
> stack all by itself. It's a dedicated virtual server with Red Hat EL and 1GB
> RAM.
>
> As traffic to the site has ramped up over time, I've begun to encounter "too
> many open files in the system" errors via Apache that look something like
> this:
>
> OperationalError: FATAL: could not open file <filename>: Too many open
> files in systemThis has become something of a debilitating problem and I'm
> struggling to come up with the best strategy for handling it. Some people
> have told me that I can solve it by better configuring my existing machine
> -- while others have insisted that I must upgrade my server rig by expanding
> it beyond one DV.
>
> My hopes in posting here is that y'all might give me some insight into how
> I can answer the question about the better approach.
>
> I've run the commands you see below and the conclusion that I'm drawing is
> that the I simply have way too many httpd file objects open -- but I'm
> unsure about the wisest way of reducing them -- or whether I can reasonably
> expected them to go down much.
>
> I'd very much appreciate any insight the list could provide into the
> situation, even if it's just point me to a reference. I've trolled the lists
> and the web and still am a Iittle unsure of the best approach, so I thought
> I'd post. If I'm overlooking the most awesome tutorial or previous lister
> post ever, please forgive my ignorance. I'd appreciate even just the link.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Ben.
>
> $ ulimit -a
> core file size (blocks, -c) 0
> data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited
> file size (blocks, -f) unlimited
> pending signals (-i) 1024
> max locked memory (kbytes, -l) 32
> max memory size (kbytes, -m) unlimited
> open files (-n) 1024
> pipe size (512 bytes, -p) 8
> POSIX message queues (bytes, -q) 819200
> stack size (kbytes, -s) 10240
> cpu time (seconds, -t) unlimited
> max user processes (-u) 137215
> virtual memory (kbytes, -v) unlimited
> file locks (-x) unlimited
>
> *postgres*.conf (max_files_per_process is commented out)
> max_connections = 100
> shared_buffers = 1000
>
> $ httpd -l
>
> Compiled in modules:
> core.c
> prefork.c
> http_core.c
> mod_so.c
>
> httpd.conf...
>
> Timeout 20
> KeepAlive Off
> MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
> KeepAliveTimeout 5
> <IfModule prefork.c>
> StartServers 8
> MinSpareServers 5
> MaxSpareServers 20
> ServerLimit 256
> MaxClients 256
> MaxRequestsPerChild 4000
> </IfModule>
>
> $ cat /proc/sys/fs/file-nr
> 73320 0 262144
>
> $ lsof | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c
> 1 COMMAND
> 10 awk
> 49 bash
> 17 crond
> 5154 httpd
> 9 init
> 25 lsof
> 39 memcached
> 807 postmaste
> 62 saslauthd
> 69 sendmail
> 28 sh
> 7 sort
> 183 sshd
> 13 syslogd
> 8 uniq
> 19 xinetd
>
>
