I believe I have tracked down the cause of this problem ...
dbus-daemon exceeds the nofile limit:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dbus/+bug/381063

Over the lasts week I have tried multiple ways to increase the nofile
setting for messagebus. I have followed
http://knol.google.com/k/fred-grott/open-file-limits-settings-on-ubuntu/166jfml0mowlh/3#
editing /etc/security/limits to add explicit entries for messagebus
and also editing /etc/pam.d/common-session. I have even tried hacking
the dbus.conf script in /etc/init to add ulimit -n 8192 in the script.
In this case the dbus-daemon didn't even appear to start (no
/var/run/dbus directory was created).  However, nothing changes the
max file setting that is set for messagebus as shown in
/proc/dbus-daemon-PID/limits.

So, this is a realy problem for me as it seems that once I reach 50
users on the system, dbus exceeds the default limit of 1024 and locks
up the system.  Up until this happens, the system runs flawlessly with
a load average of about 1 (on a dual-quad system).

How can I increase the nofile limit for dbus?   In RHEL I could edit
the rc script as a last resort but Ubuntu Karmic uses upstart.  Any
assistance is greatly appreciated as I don't know where to turn next
on this.

Sincerely,
Dave Hopkins
Newark Charter School

On Thu, Sep 16, 2010 at 8:23 AM, David Hopkins <[email protected]> wrote:
> All,
>
> I am having major issues with the dbus-daemon suddenly spiking to 100%
> cpu usage and hanging the server.  I am running Ubuntu 9.10 with all
> patches (as of two weeks ago).  This happens randomly since the system
> will run without issues for a day or so and then the dbus-daemon
> (owned by messagebus) will spike.  The only fix is to cycle the power
> on the server as the system is then completely non-responsive.
>
> I've looked at the logs and haven't seen anything that would indicate
> why this is happening though I'm also not sure exactly what I should
> expect to see in the logs.
>
> Possible other symptoms are that cups will also become non-responsive
> and has to be restarted, and ssh via ssh -X doesn't return to a prompt
> when the application launched this was exits. I have two servers which
> are identical hardware and installed applications.  Only one was
> misbehaving up until yesterday when the second system also showed this
> issue.  However, I can verify that there have been no updates to
> either system in the last two weeks so I'm not sure why the issue
> would just appear for the second server that had been running
> flawlessly.
>
> I am 'at wits end' at this point as I have no idea how to correct the
> issue.  When it happens, I have to reset the server which disconnects
> 40+ teachers from the system.  Their frustration is quite high at this
> time, as is mine.
>
> Sincerely,
> Dave Hopkins
>

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