From: Danny Feng <dfeng@redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 07:12:31 -0400
Subject: [misc] documentation: fix file-nr definition in fs.txt
Message-id: 20090804111235.18807.3598.sendpatchset@danny
O-Subject: [PATCH RHEL5.5] Documentation: update stale definition of file-nr in fs.txt
Bugzilla: 497200
RH-Acked-by: Amerigo Wang <amwang@redhat.com>

BUGZ#:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=497200

Description:
The definition of file-nr in Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt appears to be a bit
stale. It was valid for the 2.4.x kernel, but some values are different for 2.6.
An updated definition can be found in Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt

Upstream status:
A trivial patch sent to lkml, Andrew Morton has added to -mm tree.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/8/2/340

KABI:
no harm

Brew #:
http://brewweb.devel.redhat.com/brew/taskinfo?taskID=1915731

Test status:
Install kernel-doc.rpm, check /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-2.6.18/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt.
It's corrected.

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt
index 5c3a519..6920aa8 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/fs.txt
@@ -82,13 +82,16 @@ handles that the Linux kernel will allocate. When you get lots
 of error messages about running out of file handles, you might
 want to increase this limit.
 
-The three values in file-nr denote the number of allocated
-file handles, the number of unused file handles and the maximum
-number of file handles. When the allocated file handles come
-close to the maximum, but the number of unused file handles is
-significantly greater than 0, you've encountered a peak in your 
-usage of file handles and you don't need to increase the maximum.
-
+Historically, the three values in file-nr denoted the number of
+allocated file handles, the number of allocated but unused file
+handles, and the maximum number of file handles. Linux 2.6 always
+reports 0 as the number of free file handles -- this is not an
+error, it just means that the number of allocated file handles
+exactly matches the number of used file handles.
+
+Attempts to allocate more file descriptors than file-max are
+reported with printk, look for "VFS: file-max limit <number>
+reached".
 ==============================================================
 
 inode-max, inode-nr & inode-state: