vnode table full -> Kernel Panic

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vnode table full -> Kernel Panic

This morning I've been getting messages in terminal that "too many files open." Then a kernel panic happens and I see "vnode table full"
in system.log after a reboot. This system (10.3.9) has been very stable. The change is that I installed a new 120GB hard drive (Seagate Barracuda) last night as a slave on the main IDE controller. The original 40G is still the master. The errors crop up during a large rsync from a Linux box. This
is the way I've backup up files from Linux for several years with no issues.

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks!

Posted on Sep 17, 2005 7:59 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 17, 2005 12:07 PM in response to Tom Sullivan

Tom

What does

sysctl kern.maxvnodes

have to say (7168 in my case).

This is a changeable value, but I wouldn't play with it without having several, current backups!

man sysctl

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Answer 2

Sep 17, 2005 5:02 PM in response to Tom Sullivan

I had problems with my 10.3x boxes (~12 of them with 2.5GB RAM). I ended up setting kern.maxvnodes to 131071 (128k - 1) and haven't had panics because of vnodes since (~2 years).

To make a change like that persistant, you have to create an /etc/sysctl.conf file, put:

kern.maxvnodes=131071

as the only line. DON'T make the file until your sure that things are good with the new setting! This is the kind of stuff that root permissions allow you to really, really goof a machine up!

Roger

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