Having the output of ulimit -a to unlimited for all variables

[HPINVENT]

Hi. I'm in the process of installing Oracle 11i (11.5.10) on HP-UX-PA-RISC 11.23, and have setup my kernel parameters according to the required values in the /stand/system file. However, when I run the
# ulimit -a command as root, I get the following output

hostname -root# ulimit -a
time(seconds) unlimited
file(blocks) unlimited
data(kbytes) 1048576
stack(kbytes) 131072
memory(kbytes) unlimited
coredump(blocks) 4194303
nofiles(descriptors) 65535

Can I bump up my kernel parameters so that when I run ulimit -a, all values will be unlimited, or can I set that in the .profile for root. When I try to set say the ulimit -d to unlimited, I get the message stating

hostname-root# ulimit -d unlimited
sh: ulimit: The specified value exceeds the user's allowable limit.

This is when I run the command as root.

Any tips and pointers would be appreciated

[Antonio Cardoso_1]

Hi,

check
ulimit -Ha

to obtain the hard limits (that user cannot override). If you want to change this limit (e.g. for data limit):
ulimit -Hd unlimited

then ulimit -d unlimited will work.

[HPINVENT]

Hi Antonio, I tried running the command

hostname-root# ulimit -Hd unlimited

but I got the message

sh: ulimit: The specified value exceeds the user's allowable limit.

Is this an issue based on the type of shell that I am using /usr/bin/sh ?

[Don Morris_1]

The Data and Stack hard limits are determined by the maxdsiz{_64bit} and maxssiz{_64bit} tunables. (They have man pages if you want more information).

Those tunables have fixed limits which are not interpreted by ulimit as "unlimited". There is also no practical way on HP-UX to have truly "unlimited" behavior for those resources -- you must always deal with Quadrant (or Octant on IPF) boundaries, etc.

Personally -- I'd say just don't worry about it. If you want to raise your hard limits - raise the tunables and fork a new shell (because the tunables are dynamic, but only affect new processes... old processes are 'exempted' to use the limits they started with).

[Antonio Cardoso_1]

Hi

to set hard limit (-H) you must log-in as root user.

antonio.