The Hermit Hacker <scrappy(at)hub(dot)org> writes:
> looking in /var/log/messages, I'm seeing the following just before the
> crashes:
> Aug 23 12:33:47 pgsql syslogd: /dev/console: Too many open files in system: Too many open files in system
> Aug 23 12:33:47 pgsql syslogd: /var/run/utmp: Too many open files in system
> Aug 23 12:33:47 pgsql /kernel: file: table is full
That sure looks like you'd better tweak your kernel settings ... but
offhand I don't see how it could lead to "stuck spinlock" errors.
What do you get from gdb backtraces on the corefiles?
regards, tom lane