[erlang-questions] Max open files and erlang memory

[Vincent de Phily]

On Monday 24 August 2009 23:09:25 Per Hedeland wrote:
> The runtime creates an array of port structures (100+ bytes IIRC) sized
> as the next power of two at or above your "max-open-files" (a.k.a.
> sysconf(_SC_OPEN_MAX)) - this has been true since at least R10, probably
> much earlier. I.e. the following from erlang(3) is only correct
> regarding the default if you have a "max-open-files" of 1024 (or less) -
> which happens to be the default on Linux I believe.
>
>       The maximum number of ports that can be open at the  same  time
>       is  1024  by  default,  but can be configured by the environment
>       variable ERL_MAX_PORTS.
>
> The ERL_MAX_PORTS part *is* correct though - and you can use this to
> *reduce* the size of that port array. Oh, there is actually an upper
> limit - 2^28 as far as I can see. And 1024 is the *lower* limit. See
> init_io() in erts/emulator/beam/io.c.

Thanks a lot for the pointers. I'll use ERL_MAX_PORTS to tweak memory usage on 
a per-instance basis.

I still wish the memory wasn't allocated untill needed, but I won't try to 
argue against beam developpers regarding performance-related design 
decisions :)


-- 
Vincent de Phily
Mobile Devices
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