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

[Michael C. Shultz]

On Thursday 20 January 2005 03:09 pm, Joachim Dagerot wrote:
> 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

-Mike