SMARTS services fail to start

Products

• VMware

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:




sm_service fails to start a service
SMS-E-Command failed
SMS-Cannot start service ic-web-alphafry
SMS-Cannot start service ic-web-alphafry
SMS-Service failed to spawn
<SYS>-File table overflow

Receiving error: <SYS>-File table overflow

Environment

VMware Smart Assurance - SMARTS

Cause

This is due to an open file limit for the processes running sm_serviced

Resolution

To verify the open file limit, on UNIX, run "ulimit -n".  This may return quite a small open file limit, something like 256.  If this is the case, then you need to increase it.  1024 is a good value.

To change the value, run:
     ulimit -H -n 1024
And then:
     ulimit -n 1024

This should increase the open file limit and allow the services to be started.