Bug 497200

Summary: definition of file-nr differs from sysctl/fs.txt to filesystems/proc.txt
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Jeff Bastian <jbastian>
Component: kernelAssignee: Danny Feng <dfeng>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Red Hat Kernel QE team <kernel-qe>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.3CC: cward, dzickus, tao
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-03-30 07:30:31 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Bug Depends On:    
Bug Blocks: 526775, 533192    
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Description Flags
posted patch none

Description Jeff Bastian 2009-04-22 18:50:16 UTC 
Description of problem:
The definition of file-nr in /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.6.18/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt appears to be a bit stale.  It was valid for the 2.4.x kernel, but some values are different for 2.6.  An updated definition can be found in Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt 

sysctl/fs.txt:
   The three values in file-nr denote the number of allocated
   file handles, the number of unused file handles and the maximum
   number of file handles. When the allocated file handles come
   close to the maximum, but the number of unused file handles is
   significantly greater than 0, you've encountered a peak in your
   usage of file handles and you don't need to increase the maximum.

filesystems/proc.txt
   Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of allocated
   file handles, the number of allocated but unused file handles, and
   the maximum number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always reports 0 as the
   number of free file handles -- this is not an error, it just means that
   the number of allocated file handles exactly matches the number of used
   file handles.

Please update sysctl/fs.txt to mirror the description in filesystems/proc.txt

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
kernel-doc-2.6.18-128.1.6.el5.noarch

Additional info:
The proc(5) man page also has the stale definition of file-nr; see bug 497197 for this problem.
Comment 1 Danny Feng 2009-07-29 02:00:29 UTC 
upstream commit: 760df93ecdd59fc1c213a491b5adee79f53606da
Comment 2 Danny Feng 2009-07-29 10:41:36 UTC 
It looks that commit keep the stale version remained, I've send a trivial patch to lkml.
Comment 4 Danny Feng 2009-08-04 11:15:23 UTC 
Created attachment 356150 [details]
posted patch
Comment 5 RHEL Program Management 2009-10-01 16:15:41 UTC 
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red
Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release.  Product Management has requested
further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential
inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed
products.  This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update
release.
Comment 6 Don Zickus 2009-10-06 19:37:06 UTC 
in kernel-2.6.18-168.el5
You can download this test kernel from http://people.redhat.com/dzickus/el5

Please do NOT transition this bugzilla state to VERIFIED until our QE team
has sent specific instructions indicating when to do so.  However feel free
to provide a comment indicating that this fix has been verified.
Comment 8 Chris Ward 2010-02-11 10:18:03 UTC 
~~ Attention Customers and Partners - RHEL 5.5 Beta is now available on RHN ~~

RHEL 5.5 Beta has been released! There should be a fix present in this 
release that addresses your request. Please test and report back results 
here, by March 3rd 2010 (2010-03-03) or sooner.

Upon successful verification of this request, post your results and update 
the Verified field in Bugzilla with the appropriate value.

If you encounter any issues while testing, please describe them and set 
this bug into NEED_INFO. If you encounter new defects or have additional 
patch(es) to request for inclusion, please clone this bug per each request
and escalate through your support representative.
Comment 9 Jeff Bastian 2010-02-11 18:59:02 UTC 
I've installed RHEL 5.5 Beta and kernel-doc-2.6.18-186.el5 and verified that /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.6.18/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt has been updated.
Comment 11 errata-xmlrpc 2010-03-30 07:30:31 UTC 
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem
described in this bug report. This report is therefore being
closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information
on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files,
please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report
if the solution does not work for you.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2010-0178.html