too many open files. How to increase the limit

[Joe Smith]

Peter Gordon wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-11-01 at 18:07 +0100, Ambrogio wrote:
>> Now I have 1024 and I want that the new limit will be available at every
>> boot.
>>
>> I think the best place is in rc.sysinit (or rc.local).
>> What do you think?
> 
> Placing it in your /etc/rc.local is probably the easiest way. Note,
> however, that if you're not careful, this can be a big security
> concern...

I don't think this will work. Ulimit sets limits for the shell that 
executes the command and any processes that are subsequently started by 
that shell. It is not a system-wide setting. I'm not 100% sure, but I 
very much doubt that a ulimit executed by the shell that runs rc.local 
will have any effect whatever on your evolution process.

Right off, I can't say how you might change this system-wide--I don't 
see any likely suspects in /proc/sys/kernel. Even for one process, 
evolution, it might be tricky, as only root is allowed to change it, and 
you don't want to run evo as root. You'd need to run a root shell, 
change the ulimit, then su a shell (or evo directly) with your user id. 
Sounds slippery to me.

I agree with another poster further down (Gilboa Davara): there's no way 
Evolution needs that many files. Fix the real problem, don't open a door 
to more problems.

<Joe