Wiki / Configuration Parameters

Sets the maximum number of open files each server subprocess is allowed to open simultaneously; files already opened in the postmaster are not counted toward this limit. The default is one thousand files. If the kernel is enforcing a safe per-process limit, you don't need to worry about this setting. But on some platforms (notably, most BSD systems), the kernel will allow individual processes to open many more files than the system can actually support if many processes all try to open that many files. If you find yourself seeing “Too many open files” failures, try reducing this setting. This parameter can only be set at server start.

English manual coverage begins with PostgreSQL 7.4. Source history and runtime observations have their own recorded version boundaries.

boot val

1000

category

Resource Usage / Kernel Resources

context

postmaster

documented

true

enumvals

Unknown

extra desc

Unknown

lang

en

max val

2147483647

metadata version

18

min val

64

name

max_files_per_process

short desc

Sets the maximum number of files each server process is allowed to open simultaneously.

source

pg-settings-source-snapshot

unit

Unknown

vartype

integer