To set up user limits, we will need to edit the following file:

/etc/security/limits.conf

 

This file is used to apply ulimit created by the pam_module. 

 

The file has the following syntax:

<domain> <type> <item> <value>

 

Each of the options is:

Domain: this includes usernames, groups, guid ranges etc

Type: soft and hard limits

Item: the item that will be limited, core size, file size,  nproc etc

Value: this is the value for the given limit

 

A good sample for a limit is:

@student          hard           nproc                20

 

The above line sets a hard limit of maximum 20 processes on the "student" group.

 

If you want to see the limits of a certain process has you can simply “cat” the limits file like this:

# cat /proc/PID/limits

 

Where PID is the actual process ID, you can find out process id by using ps command.

 

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