Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!cmcl2!husc6!wjh12!maynard!campbell From: campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: ulimit considered braindamaged ? Message-ID: <790@maynard.BSW.COM> Date: Mon, 29-Dec-86 23:16:11 EST Article-I.D.: maynard.790 Posted: Mon Dec 29 23:16:11 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Dec-86 05:38:23 EST Reply-To: campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) Organization: The Boston Software Works, Inc. Lines: 28 Keywords: ulimit SysV irksome I'm finally undergoing the pain of switching from V7 to System V, and I'm not convinced it's an improvement. I'll confine this posting to my most pressing complaint - ulimit. For those fortunate enough not to have encountered System V, it has a thing called "ulimit" which is a per-process limit on the maximum size a file can attain. It is inherited from your parent, and the default on my system (Microport) is 2048 blocks, or one lousy megabyte. What really hurts is that there appears to be NO WAY to alter this default value. Sure, you can change it for yourself and your children, but there seems to be no way to globally remove the limit, or to set it to a reasonable value. The obvious (to me, anyway) solution would be a special type of entry in inittab -- since init is the grandpappy of all processes, if init changes its ulimit, all processes inherit the change. But I sure can't find anything in the manual about an inittab entry to set the ulimit. Is there really no way short of patching the kernel (gag, choke) to change the system-wide default ulimit? Is the rest of System V as poorly thought out as this "feature" would portend? It's amusing to note that my SYSLOG file (on my V7 system) is now (at month's end) over 1.2 megabytes, which wouldn't fly under System V. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. Internet: campbell@maynard.bsw.com 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109 uucp: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell +1 617 367 6846 ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvisr.harvard.edu MCI: LCAMPBELL