Is there a limit to create sockets on UNIX??

Jonathan Eunice jonathan at speedy.cs.pitt.edu
Fri Aug 3 03:29:34 AEST 1990


Guy Harris (guy at auspex.auspex.com) writes
	Too many open files" really means "too many open file
	descriptors in this process"; a socket in any family uses a file
	descriptor...

	Yup, the per-process file descriptor limit is the problem.  This limit
	varies from 20 to 64 to 256 in some systems.

While true that most UNIX systems are limited by static resource limits, not 
all are.  

Known counterexample: AIX 3.1 for the RS/6000 (limit = 2000).

Possible counterexamples: System V Release 4 and Apollo DomainOS.

Future counterexample: OSF/1.  

While not widely delivered today, the clear trend is making UNIX
resource allocation dynamically scalable.  A widespread interim
solution is increasing the maximum limits. (Eg, Sun's recent increase of
the per-process open file table to 256 entries, from 64.)



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