Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpcupt1!pdg
From: pdg@hpcupt1.HP.COM (Paul Gootherts)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Question about max. # of processes on HP 9000.
Message-ID: <7410011@hpcupt1.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Apr 88 21:01:49 GMT
References: <12025@sri-spam.istc.sri.com>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 43

>  > I've been doing some software IPC experimentation on an HP 9000 which
>  > requires that I be able to start up about 1 Server process and about
>  > 30 Client processes.  Currently I seem to only be able to start up about
>  > 22 Client processes before getting an error message from the system
>  > saying "no more processes".  Has anyone encountered this problem, and
>  > if so did you find some way of raising the limit?  I've been running as
>  > a simple user; I assume that root can make as many processes as it wants?

>  S800
>  ----
>  There's a kernel parameter, nproc, that specifies the number of
>  processes (regardless of owner) that may concurrently exist.  The
>  defuault is set to 20+(8*MAXUSERS), and is specified in the kernel
>  configuration file (usually /etc/conf/gen/S800).  Changing this
>  parameter involves modifying the configuration file, and regenerating
>  the kernel.  (Alternatively, you can use adb, but this is more
>  difficult.)

If you have an s300 or s800 I believe there are two ways to get a message
like this:

(1) Your process table is full.  I don't think this is your problem
    (see (2) below).  Increasing the kernel parameter nproc is one way
    to fix this.

    !!! WARNING !!!  DO NOT use adb to do this!  The process table is
    allocated at boot-time, and it's size cannot be increased after that.
    Using adb to increase nproc in a running kernel will almost certainly
    cause a system panic, and increasing it in the /hp-ux file is
    unsupported.

    If you want to increase nproc you should use the supported tools
    (for example, uxgen on s800's).

(2) Your per-user limit has been reached.  I think this is what you are
    seeing since you started having trouble around 22 and the default
    limit is 26.  (This limit applies to all users *except* the superuser.)

    If this is your problem, you are in luck.  There is a kernel parameter
    called maxuprc which controls the limit.  It is normally set to 25,
    which allows each user a max of *26* processes.  This parameter can
    also be changed using the supported tools (again, uxgen on s800's...).

- Paul Gootherts   pdg@hpda	Hewlett-Packard Co.