[rescue] Last AIX 4.3.2 ML Media?

[Eric Webb]

On Thursday 19 January 2006 12:29 pm, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >
> > Sounds like it ran out of memory and can't fork login.  That happens
> > even on AIX 5.x when I try to copy a file larger than physical ram.
> > It usually clears up once the operation hogging memory finishes.
>
> If that's the problem, you might try adding more swap space, and see if
> that helps.

That's what I first thought as well, but now I doubt it.  The app on this 
machine was moved over from an R50 with 1/3 less physical ram and has 
adequate swap.  At some point, doesn't it start killing off processes just to 
stay alive?  There could of course be a sharp upward spike right as this 
happens that my monitoring doesn't see, but every metric I can find indicates 
business as usual up until the problem.

It seems like in the past when I had systems with exhausted process limits or 
exhausted memory, you usually get some sort of indication of it in log files.  
When you telnet in, you'll usually be told that as well from what I've seen.  
(Now that I think about it, I wonder if ftpd and telnetd are running 
statically or from inet?  If from inet, that's a fork right there that is 
being successful, as I get connections from both and a prompt from ftpd.)


-E.