Hi Dave, I didn't have time to actually test this - so take it for what it's worth. I believe what happens if you don't have a sufficient FD limit is that when the Oracle database hits the number of open files, it will close a currently open file and open the file it wanted to read. In the past, that was a sufficiently great performance hit that someone decided to put that message out to the alert log. It would be a mildly interesting exercise to see if it would still be 'severe performance degradation'. Second interesting test would be if the FD limit were set to a wildly low limit - such as 4. I hope this helps. Kurt On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 6:49 AM, Herring Dave - dherri < Dave.Herring@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I did a crazy thing the other day - reviewed an alert log from a system I > inherited a while ago. I found that after a recent auto-restart a message > was displayed: "WARNING:Oracle instance running on a system with low open > file descriptor limit. Tune your system to increase this limit to avoid > severe performance degradation.". Sure enough, on this system > /etc/init.d/init.crsd has the line "ulimit -n unlimited" in it, which on > RHEL 4 generates an error, so the FD limit defaults to 1024 (bug 5862719). > > The problem is easy to resolve but my question is on Oracle's warning. > How could a low open file descriptor limit be a potential source of > "severe performance degradation"? Isn't it a black-or-white issue, either > the limit is high enough or if not, the db won't open/you can't add more > datafiles? > > DAVID HERRING > DBA > Acxiom Corporation > EML dave.herring@xxxxxxxxxx > TEL 630.944.4762 > MBL 630.430.5988 > 1501 Opus Pl, Downers Grove, IL 60515, USA > WWW.ACXIOM.COM > > The information contained in this communication is confidential, is > intended only for the use of the recipient named above, and may be legally > privileged. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, > you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of > this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this > communication in error, please resend this communication to the sender and > delete the original message or any copy of it from your computer system. > Thank you. > -- > //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l > > > -- The opinions expressed in this email are my own, and not my company's. -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l