Environment
ZENworks Configuration Management 2017
Situation
ERROR:
cgroup: fork rejected by pids controller in /system.slice/novell-zenserver.service
ERROR (in catalina.out or services logs):
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread
at java.lang.Thread.start0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Thread.start(Thread.java:597)
Resolution
In 2017 Update 4 this setting will be set already so the error should not be seen.
For prior versions:
Workaround (this will stop services so all users should be logged out of ZCC):
Stop the novell-zenserver service: systemctl stop novell-zenserver.service
Find the control file:
systemctl status novell-zenserver.service
shows file location, example:
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/novell-zenserver.service; enabled)
Make a backup of novell-zenserver.service file for safe keeping. Modify the file to add this setting:
TasksMax=infinity
under this section:
[Service]
run:
systemctl daemon-reload
Start the novell-zenserver service: systemctl start novell-zenserver.service
Cause
This is due to a change in behavior of systemctl services on SLES 12 SP 2 and greater, platforms. Now there can be a limit on the number of threads created within the service process and this is not governed now by the ulimit setting alone. By default, there will be only 512 threads which are allowed to be spawned within the service process. This can cause errors during peak load.