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Dealing with Open Files

How many files are currently open?

  • Use the lsof (list open files) command to print a list of all open files. Highly useful tool; very flexible parameters. Similar in scope to find command, but for processes. List can be sorted/filtered as needed.

How many files are open by a certain user?

 Detail:
 ps ux | grep userID
 or Summary:
 ps ux | grep userID | wc -l

How many files are open by a certain program?

lsof | grep processId | wc -l
or
lsof | grep processName | wc -l

How many files can I open with my User ID?

At a command prompt, type:

ulimit -n

How can I increase the number of files I can open with my User ID?

At a command prompt, type:

ulimit -n 4096

What about the system open file limit?

cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max