Why fdisk/sfdisk (-l) fail to list more than $(ulimit -n) devices in Red Hat Enterprise Linux?
Issue
-
Why
fdisk -l
reportstoo many open files
if the devices exist default open file limit? -
It's been noticed that on RHEL systems with a large number of disks(more than default limit 1024 in general) presented, the number of disks shown by fdisk|sfdisk -l is subject to the maximum open filehandle limit.
-
Further analysis with strace reveals that the commands appear to be failing to properly close filehandles as they work through /proc/partitions, thereby causing the open filehandle limit to be reached and the subsequent attempts to process any additional partitions fail silently.
Would the correct behaviour not be for these commands to :
a) Correctly close down filehandles as it processes the partition list?
b) Pass on the 'too many open files' error to the terminal?
Environment
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4,5,6
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