"Too many open files" (Critical, have only one session left)

[Joachim Dagerot]

>> I have got it before and took appropriate steps using the ideas and
>> tips from you guys. Now I have it again:
>>
>> Current situation on my head-less system is that I do have a single
>> SSH session up. Unfortunately it's not authenticated as ROOT but as
>> an ordinary user.
>>
>> When I try a "ls" I get :
>>
>> $ ls
>> ls: .: Too many open files in system
>>
>> Trying a su gives:
>> $ su
>> /usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Cannot open "/usr/lib/libutil.so.3"
>>
>>
>> I have a fairly huge RAID-5 system thatdislikes a power shutdown so I
>> rather want to reboot the machine manually. I certainly need som help
>> here and also more help on how to avoid this problem in the future.
>>
>I don't remember a previous message from you, but here is a link you
>may find helpful:
>
>http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/09/26/Big_Scary_Daemons.html?page=1

Good tip, unforunately I can't even run fstab:
$ su
/usr/libexec/ld-elf.so.1: Cannot open "/usr/lib/libutil.so.3"

I seam to be stucked. Is there a way to do a su for a specific program. I can't run 'su' but when I try shutdwon:

$ shutdown -r now
-bash: /sbin/shutdown: Permission denied

Looks like it's possible to run shutdown if I only hade the right permission...