Too many open file handles

Question

I\'m working on a huge legacy Java application, with a lot of handwritten stuff, which nowadays you\'d let a framework handle.

The problem I\'m facing right now is

Answer 1

I would double-check the environment settings on your Solaris box. I believe that by default Solaris only allows 256 file handles per process. For a server application, especially if it's running on a dedicated server, this is very low. Figure 50 or more descriptors for opening JRE and library JARs, and then at least one descriptor for each incoming request and database query, probably more, and you can see how this just won't cut the mustard for a serious server.

Have a look at the /etc/system file, for the values of rlim_fd_cur and rlim_fd_max, to see what your system has set. Then consider whether this is reasonable (you can see how many file descriptors are open while the server is running with the lsof command, ideally with the -p [process ID] parameter.