Re: Number of open files

"Mark Alliban" <MarkA(at)idnltd(dot)com> writes:
> I am having problems with the number of open files on Redhat 6.1. The value
> of /proc/sys/fs/file-max is 4096 (the default), but this value is reached
> with about 50 ODBC connections. Increasing the file-max value would only
> temporarily improve matters because on the long-term I expect to have 500+
> active connections. How comes there are so many open files per connection?
> Is there any way to decrease the number of open files, so that I don't have
> to increase file-max to immense proportions?

You can hack the routine pg_nofile() in src/backend/storage/file/fd.c
to return some smaller number than it's returning now, but I really
wouldn't advise reducing it below thirty or so. You'll still need to
increase file-max.

regards, tom lane