"Eamonn Kent" <ekent@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > We are using Postgres 8.1.4 for an embedded linux device. I have > max_files_per_process unset - so it should take on the default value of > 1000. However, it appears that at times, postmaster has 1023 files open > (lsof). What are you measuring here? max_files_per_process is intended to count actual files, not (for instance) shared libraries --- but lsof tends to list those too. Also, it's impossible for the code to know about open files that didn't go through fd.c, so you might have some FDs opened by random library code or whatever. You should try breaking down the lsof list to see which are actually database-file FDs. regards, tom lane