ULIMIT ( 1 ) USER COMMANDSULIMIT ( 1 )

NAME

ulimit - set or display resource limits

SYNOPSIS

ulimit [ options ] [limit]

DESCRIPTION

ulimit sets or displays resource limits. These limits apply to the current process and to each child process created after the resource limit has been set. If limit is specified, the resource limit is set, otherwise, its current value is displayed on standard output.

Increasing the limit for a resource usually requires special privileges. Some systems allow you to lower resource limits and later increase them. These are called soft limits. Once a hard limit is set the resource can not be increased.

Different systems allow you to specify different resources and some restrict how much you can raise the limit of the resource.

The value of limit depends on the unit of the resource listed for each resource. In addition, limit can be unlimited to indicate no limit for that resource.

If you do not specify -H or -S, then -S is used for listing and both -S and -H are used for setting resources.

If you do not specify any resource, the default is -f.

OPTIONS

-H
A hard limit is set or displayed.
-S
A soft limit is set or displayed.
-a
Displays all current resource limits
-M, --as
The address space limit in kbytes.
-c, --core
The core file size in blocks.
-t, --cpu
The cpu time in seconds.
-d, --data
The data size in kbytes.
-f, --fsize
The file size in blocks.
-L, --locks
The number of file locks.
-l, --memlock
The locked address space in kbytes.
-n, --nofile
The number of open files.
-u, --nproc
The number of processes.
-p, --pipe
The pipe buffer size in bytes.
-m, --rss
The resident set size in kbytes.
-b, --sbsize
The socket buffer size in bytes.
-s, --stack
The stack size in kbytes.
-T, --threads
The number of threads.
-v, --vmem
The process size in kbytes.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
A request for a higher limit was rejected or an error occurred.

SEE ALSO

ulimit(2), getrlimit(2)

IMPLEMENTATION

version
ulimit (AT&T Research) 2003-06-21
author
David Korn <dgk@research.att.com>
copyright
Copyright © 1982-2010 AT&T Intellectual Property
license
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/cpl1.0.txt