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The number of allocated ptys (/proc/sys/kernel/pty/nr) on my linux server is constantly growing, and exceeds the number of active logins, terminals and screen sessions by orders of magnitude. Only a system restart resets seems to reset it.

How can I find out which process is eating up the pty's?

I tried the suggestion in answer 1, but

# lsof -n | grep pts | wc -l
137
# cat /proc/sys/kernel/pty/nr 
696

# uname -a
Linux spitzer 2.6.32-34-server #77-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 13 20:54:38 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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2 Answers

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According to grawity's answer on superuser, what you are seeing is due to a bug in linux. /proc/sys/kernel/pty/nr is not decremented when a pty is no longer used. That is why lsof is showing a lower number. This was noticed in November 2009 but not fixed until August 2011.

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up vote 2 down vote

Ptys are file handles. You can use lsof to find out which process is keeping which files open.

# lsof -n | grep pts
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Doesn't quite work though (main question edited). – Nikratio Oct 24 '11 at 21:38
Which kernel/distribution are you running? – Kvisle Oct 24 '11 at 21:44
Try lsof -n | grep 136, – David Schwartz Oct 25 '11 at 1:53
@DavidSchwartz That includes process ids and memory segments that would happen to match as well. – Kvisle Oct 25 '11 at 7:27
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