CLI option to stop/start server in Mac does not work

The help option for the couchbase-server script in mac says the following. But does not work when we try to stop / start the server.

./couchbase-server --help
couchbase-server is a script to start/stop the Couchbase server.

Usage: ./couchbase-server [options]

Special options:
--help, -h Print this help text
--version, -v Print software Version
-k Stop couchbase Server

All other options and arguments will be passed to the Couchbase
server and should NOT be used unless you know what you're doing.

It fails with the following error

./couchbase-server stop

The maximum number of open files for the couchbase user is set too low.
It must be at least 40960.

Erlang/OTP 19 [erts-8.1] [source] [64-bit] [smp:8:8] [async-threads:16] [hipe] [kernel-poll:false] [dtrace]

{"init terminating in do_boot",{undef,[

{ns_babysitter_bootstrap,start,[],[]}

,

{init,start_em,1,[]}

,

{init,do_boot,3,[]}

]}}
init terminating in do_boot ()

Crash dump is being written to: erl_crash.dump.1496162347.60943.babysitter...done