ulimit Changes for File nofiles

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Configure-Administer
1

I’m really struggling to figure this out. I’m having a similar issues
that was posted to this ‘thread’
(http://forums.novell.com/suse/suse-product-discussion-forums/suse-linux-enterprise/suse-linux-enterprise-server-sles/sles-configure-administer/418730-ulimit-changes-work-su-but-ignored-login.html)
but I don’t see a solution to the problem.

I’m trying to increase the hard and soft limits for the oracle user by
specifying them in /etc/security/limits.conf

oracle soft nproc 2047
oracle hard nproc 16384
oracle soft nofile 4096
oracle hard nofile 65536
oracle soft stack 10240

All the limits are being applied correctly except the nofile limits.

If I log in as that user, either with a new session or “su - oracle”
the nofile limit is 1024 and can’t be adjusted any higher. However, if I
just “su oracle” from the root user the nofile limits are what is
specified in the file.

From what I can gather I need to have the “session require
pam_limits.so” specified in /etc/pam.d/login but as far as I can tell it
is included via the “session include common-session” line.

Any one else have this problem or know of a solution?

–
derekmceachern

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2

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Are you sure there is not something in the ‘oracle’ user’s profile or
login scripts resetting it again to some smaller value? The difference
between ‘su’ on its own and the options that fail as you described them
is that the other options reset the environment completely where ‘su’ on
its own does not so you are actually inheriting the previous user’s
settings (and the previous user may not have any bash/profile scripts
setting things down to 1024).

Good luck.
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3

That’s really strange.

Your right, there is a limit set in oracle users profile, it’s a ksh
shell and it does a

ulimit -n 1024

However, if I try and change the limit using the ulimit command it
fails.

(oracle) $ ulimit -Sn 2048
-ksh: ulimit: 2048: limit exceeded [Invalid argument]

If I remove the ulimit in the .kshrc it gets set correctly and I’m able
to change it.

I guess I don’t understand the mechanism here on why the .kshrc ulimit
is taking precedence and preventing it from being modified after login.

–
derekmceachern

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4

RTFM :slight_smile: From ulimit(2)

The -H and -S flags specify whether the hard limit or the
soft limit for the given resource is set. A hard limit can-
not be increased once it is set. A soft limit can be
increased up to the value of the hard limit. If neither the
-H or -S options is specified, the limit applies to both.

That would explain why I can’t change the hard limit after it’s been
set.

–
derekmceachern

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5

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Exactly. If a hard limit could be increased at runtime by the user
themselves it’d hardly be a limit. :slight_smile:

Good luck.
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6

But to my way of thinking they should be able to increase the hard limit
to what the system has defined as the hard limit for that user.

I have a system defined limit of 4096 defined in
/etc/security/limits.conf.

User sets hard limit in profile to 1024.

I would expect them to be able to adjust the hard limit up to 4096 but
not beyond.

Either way, I now understand the behaviour and can make it work like I
need.

–
derekmceachern

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7

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Yes, you understand it correctly. The problem is that Oracle apparently
does not understand and instead of setting a soft limit (which you could
then control as you tried to do) they set a hard limit, with the
‘oracle’ user, thus locking you out from making your own changes after
the fact. Silly, but oh well.

Good luck.
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8

Hey, I have a similar problem.

I can´t set the ulimit to 65536 for user root.

I setup /etc/security/limits.conf
root hard nofile 65536
But ulimit -n is keeps showing 1024

Where is 1024 being set - how can I change it ?

Entries for oracle users are working fine with the configure limits.conf

chris