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.
upstream commit: 760df93ecdd59fc1c213a491b5adee79f53606da
It looks that commit keep the stale version remained, I've send a trivial patch to lkml.
Created attachment 356150 [details] posted patch
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.
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.
~~ 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.
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.
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