[system]
max_programs=128
From release 4.621 determines the maximum number of programs using DP4 IPC that can be run simultaneously on the local machine. ADCs and the Network Manager are included in the total, and also the database manager if the -distributed option is in use. Also one handle is reserved for internal use.
There can be little reason to increase this value except on machines running Citrix or Terminal Services clients with a full 2 Gigabytes of RAM. Reducing the number to a smaller but reasonable value such as 32 will save a small amount of memory for each DP4 process.
This number has no bearing on the number of users that can connect to the database manager via the DP4 networking.
From release 4.525 this setting is also used on Unix/Linux platforms, but in a slightly different way: setting this to a low value will not prevent you running more programs, but will reduce the size of the cache DP4 internally uses for remembering information used for IPC between applications and DP4. Generally you should set this value to the largest number of DP4 programs you want to run simultaneously as on Windows. The amount of memory saved by specifying a low value is minuscule - only eight bytes per server per program (i.e. specifying 64 instead of 128 will save 64*8 bytes in each of srv3, tcp3, and any ADC loaded)