From: Bill Jones (bjones@cambria.columbus.oh.us)
Date: 10/22/92


From: bjones@cambria.columbus.oh.us (Bill Jones)
Subject: QUESTION:  What does _file table overflow_ indicate?
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 1992 14:52:50 GMT

The last two days. I have gotten an error that I have not seen the four
months of using linux. Whatever is causing it is happening overnight,
apparently during heavy disk usage (running Cnews expire and perhaps uuxqt).
In the morning, when I try to find out what is going on, I'll type

        ps aux

and get the answer

        usr/src/linux/tools/system: File table overflow

and the xterm will lock. If I create another xterm, it will be created but
bash will not run. If I exit X, I will get the bash prompt but be unable to
execute any command. Any command is met by the same error.

I think that this might be caused by too many processes underway causing a
lockup in process allocation (?). Anyone have ideas on this?

My setup is:
        linux 0.98.1 compiled with GCC 2.2.2d7
        running X v2.1 all of the time
        ps, free, etc from HLU's latest bootdisk

Thanks,

Bill

-- 
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Bill Jones
bjones@cambria.columbus.oh.us
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