Hello,
On Suse... # find /proc/sys | grep file /proc/sys/fs/file-max /proc/sys/fs/file-nr
# cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max 50716
# cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max 102592 # cat /proc/sys/fs/file-nr 19755 0 102592
well, more than 100.000 concurrent filehandles seem to be a lot. But if I'm doing an "lsof", I can find 18 filehandles per imap-process, like:
imap 32703 nobody cwd DIR 104,4 4096 934141 /mailboxes/s imap 32703 nobody rtd DIR 104,2 4096 2 / imap 32703 nobody txt REG 104,4 568944 2572335 /imap/dovecot-1.0.beta3/libexec/dovecot/imap imap 32703 nobody mem REG 104,2 106397 33036 /lib/ld-2.3.4.so imap 32703 nobody mem REG 104,2 1454462 33048 /lib/tls/libc-2.3.4.so imap 32703 nobody mem REG 104,2 15324 33071 /lib/libdl-2.3.4.so imap 32703 nobody 0u unix 0xc4d82880 46130422 socket imap 32703 nobody 1u unix 0xc4d82880 46130422 socket imap 32703 nobody 2w FIFO 0,7 46130423 pipe imap 32703 nobody 3u CHR 5,0 1518 /dev/tty imap 32703 nobody 4r CHR 1,9 440 /dev/urandom imap 32703 nobody 5u CHR 136,6 8 /dev/pts/6 (deleted) imap 32703 nobody 6r FIFO 0,7 46130424 pipe imap 32703 nobody 7w FIFO 0,7 34371569 pipe imap 32703 nobody 8w FIFO 0,7 46130424 pipe imap 32703 nobody 9r FIFO 0,7 46130425 pipe imap 32703 nobody 10w FIFO 0,7 46130425 pipe imap 32703 nobody 11u REG 104,4 296 934811 /mailboxes/s/Maildir/dovecot.index.log
So if some people 100 people are keeping 3 concurrent imap-connections idle (which is default with Mozilla Mail), the 54000 filehandles are opened. And the server also does some nfs-stuff und pop3 and I guess there are more than 100 people keeping connections idle.
So how can I limit this? I can't always wait for the imap-server to die so I can start it again.
Regards Marten Lehmann