[linux] How do I change the number of open files limit in Linux?

When running my application I sometimes get an error about too many files open.

Running ulimit -a reports that the limit is 1024. How do I increase the limit above 1024?

Edit ulimit -n 2048 results in a permission error.

If you are using Linux and you got the permission error, you will need to raise the allowed limit in the /etc/limits.conf or /etc/security/limits.conf file (where the file is located depends on your specific Linux distribution).

For example to allow anyone on the machine to raise their number of open files up to 10000 add the line to the limits.conf file.

* hard nofile 10000

Then logout and relogin to your system and you should be able to do:

ulimit -n 10000

without a permission error.

1) Add the following line to /etc/security/limits.conf

webuser hard nofile 64000

then login as webuser

su - webuser

2) Edit following two files for webuser

append .bashrc and .bash_profile file by running

echo "ulimit -n 64000" >> .bashrc ; echo "ulimit -n 64000" >> .bash_profile

3) Log out, then log back in and verify that the changes have been made correctly:

$ ulimit -a | grep open
open files                      (-n) 64000

Thats it and them boom, boom boom.

If some of your services are balking into ulimits, it's sometimes easier to put appropriate commands into service's init-script. For example, when Apache is reporting

[alert] (11)Resource temporarily unavailable: apr_thread_create: unable to create worker thread

Try to put ulimit -s unlimited into /etc/init.d/httpd. This does not require a server reboot.