[Bug 2112372] Re: Please increase fs.inotify.max_user_instances

[Laurent Bonnaud]

Increasing fs.inotify.max_user_instances can be done by adding a file to
the fwupd package that will be installed into this directory:

/etc/sysctl.d/

with the following content:

fs.inotify.max_user_instances=512


** Bug watch added: Red Hat Bugzilla #2029179
   https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2029179

** Also affects: fwupd (CentOS) via
   https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2029179
   Importance: Unknown
       Status: Unknown

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Title:
  Please increase fs.inotify.max_user_instances

Status in fwupd package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in fwupd package in CentOS:
  Unknown

Bug description:
  Hi,

  on my system, with default sysctl parameters, fwupd fails to start
  because of a crash.

  In the journal, I see many error messages such as this one:

  Jun 03 10:16:59 vougeot fwupd[42726]: 08:16:59.639 FuBackend
  failed to create device: failed to probe: failed to open
  /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:08.3/uevent: Too many open files

  and then:

  Jun 03 10:17:01 vougeot fwupd[42726]: 08:17:01.371 GLib
  Creating pipes for GWakeup: Too many open files

  Finally fwupd crashes:

  Jun 03 10:17:01 vougeot kernel: traps: fwupd[42726] trap int3
  ip:7f8742880f0f sp:7ffd2e9639c0 error:0 in
  libglib-2.0.so.0.8400.1[73f0f,7f874282c000+bd000]

  Here are inotify parameters:

  # sysctl fs.inotify
  fs.inotify.max_queued_events = 16384
  fs.inotify.max_user_instances = 256   # This is already increased from a default of 128
  fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 65536

  Increasing fs.inotify.max_user_instances to 512 fixes the problem.

  Of course, fwupd should also be made more robust and not crash when it
  encounters a system limit.

  Thanks.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 25.04
  Package: fwupd 2.0.7-1
  Uname: Linux 6.14.9-zabbly+ x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.32.0-0ubuntu5.1
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
  CurrentDesktop: KDE
  Date: Tue Jun  3 11:30:54 2025
  SourcePackage: fwupd
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  modified.conffile..etc.fwupd.fwupd.conf: [inaccessible: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/etc/fwupd/fwupd.conf']

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