[syslog-ng] Too Many Open Files

[Balazs Scheidler]

On Tue, 2009-01-13 at 09:34 -0500, Zeek Anow wrote:
> We are running Solaris 9, syslog-ng 2.0.5, 
> 
> We are getting:
> Error opening file for writing; filename='/logs/combo/combo.log.01',
> error='Too many open files (24)'
> 
> I went into the startup script, /etc/init.d/syslog-ng and tried to up
> the limit by putting this in the startup section:
> 
> ulimit -n 4096.
> 
> When I stop and start syslog-ng and look at the ulimit settings, it
> still shows 256.
> core file size          (blocks, -c) unlimited
> data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
> file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
> open files                      (-n) 256
> pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 10
> stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192
> cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
> max user processes              (-u) 29995
> virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
> 
> Any ideas on how to set this? 
> 
> Thanks,

ulimits are inherited through the process tree, e.g. if you change
ulimit in your shell, then the executed processes will have that ulimit.

However if you change it in the syslog-ng init script, that change won't
be propagated back to your login shell.

Try reading the ulimit values right from the init script to see if they
are in effect.

Please note that syslog-ng 3.0 already increases ulimit for itself, to
4096 fds by default, but you can change those using command line
options. (also, it is able to restart itself upon failure and send out
an email in this case).

-- 
Bazsi