TNS-12540: TNS:internal limit restriction exceeded

[nagarjuna]

hi All,

I had Oracle 9.2.0.5 running up and fine for the past 2 months. But, all of sudden the listener services are refusing to start. I am getting the following error.

$ lsnrctl start dev1

LSNRCTL for Linux: Version 9.2.0.5.0 - Production on 02-OCT-2005 18:37:26

Copyright (c) 1991, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

Starting /oracle/ebs11510/dev1/dev1db/9.2.0/bin/tnslsnr: please wait...

TNSLSNR for Linux: Version 9.2.0.5.0 - Production
System parameter file is /oracle/ebs11510/dev1/dev1db/9.2.0/network/admin/dev1_kohinoor/listener.ora
Log messages written to /oracle/ebs11510/dev1/dev1db/9.2.0/network/admin/dev1.log
Error listening on: (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=IPC)(KEY=EXTPROCdev1))
TNS-12540: TNS:internal limit restriction exceeded
TNS-12560: TNSrotocol adapter error
TNS-00510: Internal limit restriction exceeded
Linux Error: 28: No space left on device

Listener failed to start. See the error message(s) above...

I tried metalink/google. All of them talk about low resources (swap space and RAM). But, I am having 24GB RAM. I had 10 GB swap space. I made it 48GB, just to try all the combinations. But, this does not help. I am getting the same old error.

OS : RHEL AS 3.0

Recent changes to the system : none. This is what puzzling me.

If any of you had similar issues before, plz do let me know. It would be of great help.

[pando]

Linux Error: 28: No space left on device

any full filesystems?

[nagarjuna]

Bingo. You are on target.

Even I checked the file system space. I had enough space on the filesystem. What I missed to check is "iNode" data. My /var file system had too many small files created by UTL_FILE package, thus exhausting the iNodes of the /var filesystem. I deleted all the files and my listener service started. Unfortunately, I did not check the inode information before deleting the files. So, I do not have a proof to say that "it is to do with inode". But, my logic says "it has to be iNode".