"Too many open files" error, induced by u9fs on BSD/os?

"Too many open files" error, induced by u9fs on BSD/os?

[Steve]

I'm changing jobs at the end of this week, and moving my Plan9 systems to my
home where I'll be using a BSD/os 2.1 system as a u9fs fileserver
(I've been using an SGI as my u9fs fileserver for >2 years before this).

Both my Plan9 systems (Magnum 3000 cpuserver and terminal) keep getting
into a state where almost any program I try to run will return with a
"Too many open files" error. This is most easily induced by compiling.
Once in this state, all rc scripts seem to fail, whereas simple
binary programs continue to work, even ones such as 'cp' which will
have several open files. Has anyone seen this, or have any suggestions
that would help me track down what is going wrong? There are no error
messages in the u9fs logfile.

The only place I've been able to find the error "Too many open files"
so far is in /sys/src/ape/lib/ap/stdio/strerror.c, though a 'strings'
reveals it is in many binaries that have little to do with ape.

Here's a log of what things look like (the last 2 programs,
d and dirs, show that rc scripts will not work):

term% cd /sys/src/9/chm
term% mk
rc ../port/mkdevh chm > devtab.h
va initcode
vl -l -s -o init.out -R4 initcode.v
{echo 'uchar initcode[]={'
 xd -r -1x init.out |
	sed -e 's/^[0-9a-f]+ //' -e 's/ ([0-9a-f][0-9a-f])/0x\1,/g'
 echo '};'} > init.h
cp /mips/bin/disk/kfs kfs.out
strip kfs.out
../port/mkroot kfs fs
strip: kfs.out is already stripped
aux/data2s: Too many open files
mk: cp /mips/bin/disk/kfs kfs.out ...  : exit status=rc 142:mkroot 146:mkroot 148:can't exec
term%
term% mk
sed: Too many open files
awk: Too many open files
awk: Too many open files
sed: Too many open files
sed: Too many open files
awk: Too many open files
va l.s
vc -w -I. ../port/alarm.c
../port/alarm.c:2 vc: Too many open files: u.h
mk: vc -w -I. ../port/alarm.c  : exit status=rc 181:vc 183:error
term% who
sort: Too many open files
sed: Too many open files
ps: Too many open files
term% date
Wed Aug 28 10:11:49 EDT 1996
term% cp /adm/users /tmp
term%
term% d
/tmp
term% cat /bin/d
#!/bin/pwd
term%
term% dirs
pwd: Too many open files
term% cat /bin/dirs
#!/bin/rc
pwd
term%