Re: How many file descriptors does postgres need?

On Mar 9, 2010, at 5:11 AM, Royce Ausburn wrote:

> G'day all,
>
> We recently had a bit of a catastrophe when one of our postgres databases opened too many files. It was a reasonably easy fix, but it did get me thinking. Is there a rule of thumb in determining how many file descriptors should be available to a postgres database/cluster?
>
> I'd be happy to set it to some large number, but I'd really like some confidence about how much the database can grow with a new limit.

Postgresql is supposed to cope with file descriptor limits quite happily, as long as the OS actually restricts the number of files a process can have open. If it doesn't restrict the number, just falls over if there's too many, there's a postgresql configuration option to limit it (max_files_per_process, I think).

What OS are you on, and what was the catastrophe?

Cheers,
Steve