Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.ysu.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!nerd.apk.net!sed.psrw.com!psinntp !psinntp!psinntp!usenet2.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!usenet1.news.uk.psi.net!uknet!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!jraynard.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail From: james@jraynard.demon.co.uk (James Raynard) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Out of Processes Date: 5 Jul 1996 19:07:30 -0000 Organization: A FreeBSD Box Lines: 42 Message-ID: <4rjp5i$2sg@jraynard.demon.co.uk> References: <31D06A89.41C67EA6@nwlink.com> <31D4048A.23C4@www.play-hookey.com> <4r8ved$85i@nntp5.u.washington.edu> <31DD34D5.591C@www.play-hookey.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost X-NNTP-Posting-Host: jraynard.demon.co.uk In article <31DD34D5.591C@www.play-hookey.com>, Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> wrote: >kargl@troutmask.apl.washington.edu wrote: >> >> Ken Bigelow <kbigelow@www.play-hookey.com> wrote in article <31D4048A.23C4@www.play-hookey.com> : >> > >> >Florida Boy wrote: >> >> >> >> After about 32-40 processes, my machine claims "no more processes" for >> >> each user. I've adjusted maxusers in the kernel conf file to 64, so I >> >> thought I had circumvented this. Any suggestions or helpful hints where >> >> else to look? >> > >> >Did you recompile the kernel after setting this parameter? >> >> No. He needs to look at his per-shell process limits. > >I refer you to the on-line handbook, under "Rebuilding the Kernel: [snip] >If he didn't recompile the kernel, he can set 1000 processes for each >user but the system won't run them. The previous answer was correct; shell limits are the problem here. (It's true that kernel limits will eventually come into play, but the shell limits are considerably lower). The default configuration for FreeBSD sets up csh as the user's shell with maxproc = 40 which, by a remarkable coincidence, was the maximum number of processes "Florida Boy" could run in each shell. I tried this with bash, using 'ulimit -u unlimited' and it allowed me to start up 179 processes from a single shell. In csh, 'limit -h maxproc' only gave me 40, but I could do 'limit maxproc 64' and start 64 processes (I didn't investigate any further as I was starting to get bored...) -- James Raynard, Edinburgh, Scotland james@jraynard.demon.co.uk http://www.freebsd.org/~jraynard/