Overview of Kernel Configuration Parameters

maxusers: the name of this kernel parameter is a misnomer as it does not directly control the number of UNIX users that can logon to HP-UX. However, this kernel parameter is used in various formulae throughout the kernel. In fact, the default values for nproc, nfiles and ninodes are expressed in terms of maxusers.

nproc: this kernel parameter controls the size of the process table. Its default formula is (20+8*maxusers). On most systems the default value for this parameter is 21, which yields a default value of 20+8*32 or 276 maximum processes supported. When this table fills up prior to launching a process, the error message: “proc: table is full” will appear on the console. It will be viewable via the dmesg command.

nfile: this kernel parameter controls the size of the system file table and limits the total number of open files in the system. Note that this affects each instance of an open file since the same file opened twice would take up 2 entries in the system file table. This default formula is (16*(nproc+16+maxusers)/10+32+2*(npty+nstrpty+nstrtel)). When this tables becomes full, the console message file: table is full will appear on the console.

ninode: this kernel parameters controls the size of the in-core inode table or the inode cache. To improve performance, the most recently accessed inodes are kept in memory. The default formula for this parameter is ((nproc+16+maxusers)+32+(2*npty)). Attempts to open a file beyond the capacity of this table will result in the message inode table full being displayed on the console.

nflocks: defines the maximum combined total number of file locks that are available system-wide to all processes at any given time. The default value of 200 will need to be increased for HP CIFS Servers.