Hello:
I'm having an issue with a Samba server having too many opened files. I'm running CentOS 5.7 with: samba-x86_64.3.0.33, release 3.29.el5_7.4.

Samba has around 700 processes running to server all clients.
[root@hostname ~]# lsof | grep smb | grep '/usr/sbin/smbd' | wc -l
698

The problem is that EACH process has ~70 files opened, so I end up with a LOT of opened files owned by samba.
[root@hostname ~]# lsof | grep smb | wc -l
58448
For example, this file:
[root@hostname ~]# lsof | grep smb | grep '/var/cache/samba/messages.tdb' | wc -l
1390

This eventually hits the maximum number for opened files 65k and I have to eventually restart Samba server (service smb restart), but the number of open files increases until the process repeats.

Question: How can alleviate this problem without restarting Samba?

Try /etc/security/limits.conf

I have already set limits for open file of 65k and sometimes I pass that!