Re: [PATCH 2.6.13-rc6 1/2] New Syscall: get rlimits of any process (update)

Wieland Gmeiner
2005-08-18T16:19:34Z

On Thu, 2005-08-18 at 04:05 +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:

> Is there a realistic use case where this new system call is actually useful
> and solves something that cannot be solved without it?

As an example: It seems to be a common problem with numerous services to
run out of available file descriptors. There are several workarounds to
this problem, the most common seems to be increasing the systemwide max
number of filedescriptors and restarting the service. If you google for
e.g. 'linux "too many open files"' you get a bunch of mailing list
support requests about that problem.

Also some documention for specific services show that there is a need to
adjust rlimits per process at runtime, e.g.:
http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ-11.html#ss11.4
http://slacksite.com/apache/logging.html
http://staff.in2.hr/denis/oracle/10g1install_fedora3_en.html#n2

Thanks,
Wieland