SAMBA digest 1512 - Too many users for samba?

[Stefaan A Eeckels]

On 03-Dec-97 samba at samba.anu.edu.au wrote:
> Date: Wed, 3 Dec 1997 14:44:27 +0100
> From: Steinar Kaaro <Steinar.Kaaro at ub.ntnu.no>
> To: samba at samba.anu.edu.au
> Subject: Too many users for samba?
> Message-ID: <199712031344.OAA21708 at serv1.ub.ntnu.no>
> 
> Hi,
> I've been running a Linux machine (RedHat 4.1 kernel 2.0.27)
> with Samba 1.9.16p9 (built by RedHat) for about 1 year now.
> Everything has been working just fine, but recently I increased
> the number of users. When I get to about 75 users the whole
> system goes down, with messages like:
>   Unable to load interpreter
>   No more processes
>   File table overflow
The problem is that your OS is running out of resources. Have a
look in the /proc filesystem:

        /proc/sys/kernel/file-max: maximum number of open files
                                   (system-wide)
        /proc/sys/kernel/file-nr:  current number of open files
        /proc/sys/kernel/inode-max: max. number of active i-nodes
                                   (avg 3 per file)
        /proc/sys/kernel/inode-nr: current number of active inodes.
You can increase these limits (1024 and 3072 by default) as follows
        # echo "2048" > /proc/sys/kernel/file-max
        # echo "6144" > /proc/sys/kernel/inode-max
The 'no more processes' puzzles me a little, as Linux doesn't have
a limit on processes as older UNIXes used to have. I guess the message
is caused by the lack of file handles or inodes.

> If I manage to kill Samba, the system recovers and I can start
> Samba over again, but when I reach about 75 users, the thing
> goes down again. I've turned on heavy logging on Samba, but
> it says nothing about any problem.
Because it's not a Samba problem. The system logs (usually somewhere
in /var/log or /var/adm) would be a better place to look.
  
> I've tried to increase the memory, and I now have a total of
> 128Mb, but with no difference. I've upgraded to 1.9.17p2
> (RPM-version for RH 4.1), but this version crashes when I
> reach about 60 users.
Because it's a tad heavier on resources (but also a lot faster).

> Can anyone please give me some clue on what could be causing 
> this?
HTH

Stefaan
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