Setting File Handles
The maximum number of file handles denotes the maximum number of open files that you can have on the Linux system.
Setting System Wide Limit for File Handles
The value in /proc/sys/fs/file-max sets the maximum number of file handles or open files that the Linux kernel will allocate. When you get error messages about running out of file handles, then you might want to raise this limit. The default value on RH 2.1AS is 8192.
For an Oracle server it is recommended that the file handles for the entire system is set to at least 65536.
To determine the maximum number of file handles for the entire system, run:
cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
To determine the current usage of file handles, run:
$ cat /proc/sys/fs/file-nr
1154 133 8192
The file-nr file displays three parameters:
- Total allocated file handles
- Currently used file handles
- Maximum file handles that can be allocted (see also file-max)
The kernel dynamically allocates file handles whenever a file handle is requested by an application, but the kernel does not free these file handles when they are released by the application. The kernel recycles these file handles instead. This means that over time the total number of allocated file handles will increase even though the number of currently used file handles may be low.
The maximum number of file handles can be changed in the proc file system without reboot:
su - root
echo “65536″ > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
Alternatively, you can use sysctl(8) to change it:
sysctl -w fs.file-max=65536
To make the change permanent, add or change the following line in the file /etc/sysctl.conf. This file is used during the boot process.
echo “fs.file-max=65536″ >> /etc/sysctl.conf
