hi Amos , thanks alot for reply , i viewed root@debian:~# nano /etc/init.d/squid3 ============================= i found that ulimit was set to 65535 =================================== root@debian:~# cat /etc/init.d/squid3 | grep ulimit ulimit -n 65535 ulimit -n 65535 =========================================================== does that mean that this value is overwriting the value when i type ulimit -n from bash shell ??? i also wan tto ask if this issue has relation to rate limit kernel i noted some logs in /var/log/messages root@vyatta:~# tailf /var/log/messages May 11 17:32:29 vyatta kernel: [243759.737860] net_ratelimit: 1 callbacks suppressed May 11 17:32:36 vyatta kernel: [243766.446286] net_ratelimit: 11 callbacks suppressed May 11 17:32:47 vyatta kernel: [243777.487244] net_ratelimit: 8 callbacks suppressed May 11 17:33:01 vyatta kernel: [243791.353330] net_ratelimit: 3 callbacks suppressed regards -- View this message in context: http://squid-web-proxy-cache.1019090.n4.nabble.com/cant-increase-max-files-open-in-limits-conf-tp4659923p4659928.html Sent from the Squid - Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.