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Andrey Zentavr
Asked: 2010-10-28 02:25:57 +0800 CST

Setup "open files" limit in Linux per user. Cannot setup more than 1024

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I try to increase open file limit for certain user on CentOS 5.5 Linux. I added a new line to /etc/security/limits.conf:

seed     hard    nofile          10240

Then do test:

runuser -s /bin/bash - seed -c "ulimit -S -c 0>/dev/null 2>&1; ulimit -a"
0
core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals                 (-i) 8185
max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 32
max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 1024
pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 10240
cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) unlimited
virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited

And as you can see - open file limit is still 1024. If I set up the limit as 1000, it will be applied. So, I cannot setup the limit more than 1024.

How can I do that?? I need to set up the settings only for 1 user, not system-wide.

linux centos ulimit limits

4 Answers

  1. I suspect runuser doesn't go through PAM's "login" process that applies limits.conf, or maybe pam_limits.so is disabled. In Debian, at least, /etc/pam.d/su has pam_limits.so commented out so that the limits are inherited from the user running su.

    • 3

  2. To increase open file limit for certain user on CentOS 5.5 Linux:

    1 - in file '/etc/security/limits.conf' add: - http://gerardnico.com/wiki/linux/limits.conf

    ...
# seed osuser - extended max number of open files
seed    hard    nofile    10240

# End of file

    2 - in file '/etc/profile' or in '/home/seed/.bash_profile' add:

    if [ $USER = "seed" ]; then
        ulimit -n 10240
fi
    • 1

  3. On linux systems, there are three places where file limits are set, each independent of the other:

    1. the kernel, as in /proc/sys/fs/file-max, controlled via sysctl fs.filemax or /etc/sysctl.conf

    2. the ulimit in the shell, as controlled by ulimit -n

    3. PAM, as set via /etc/security/limits.conf

    The number that takes precedence and actually determines the limit on your processes is whatever is the LEAST of the above three.

    • 0

  4. Using "ulimit -a" you see the soft limit, 1024 in redhat 5.8 is the default soft limit

    vim /etc/security/limits.conf
user01  soft    nofile  1024
user01  hard    nofile  2048

ulimit -Sn
1024
ulimit -Hn
2048

    reading proc

    grep "Max open files" /proc/$$/limits
Max open files            1024                 2048                 files
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