max user processes (ulimit) error

[Tonatiuh]

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 Release 3.

I get an error when I try to set the max user processes.

[oracle@rac2 oracle]$ ulimit -u 16384
-bash: ulimit: max user processes: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted

Any idea about how to solve this problem?

[Gopi Sekar]

it seems like as a user you can not go beyond currently allowed limit.

by default ulimit sets to 16255 in my Fedora, as a normal user i can reduce the value, but i can not increase the value. At the same time if i reduce the value, say to 16000, then next time onwards I can not reset back to 16255, very funny :)

as a user i am only allowed to reduce my current ulimit and not increase it. As a root it is possible to increase or decrease the limit to any extend.

Regards,
Gopi

[Sergejs Svitnevs]

You should log in directly at the console (instead of logging in remotely with telnet, ssh etc.) and issue the command "ulimit" as a normal user.

Regards,
Sergejs

[Tonatiuh]

Hi Sergejs,

The console is in the other side of the world. I am in Mexico and the server is in Italy.

Any other idea to set max user processes with oracle user?

[Sergejs Svitnevs]

you should try to set sePrivilegeSeparation in /etc/ssh/sshd_config to "no" and restart the SSH daemon by executing "service sshd restart". The privilege separation does not work properly with PAM on Linux.

Regards,
Sergejs

[Dave Falloon]

I don't know about fedora but on debian there is a file called limits.conf in /etc/security/ that sets the defaults for users on the system.

You may want to change it there, trouble is that changes it for every user.

--Dave

[Dave Falloon]

Oh wait never mind you can change the limits in this file for individual users and for groups, netgroups, et al.

check through /etc/ for anything named limit,

find /etc |grep -i limit

--Dave