1 .\" Copyright (c) 1992 Drew Eckhardt, March 28, 1992
2 .\" and Copyright (c) 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2010 Michael Kerrisk
4 .\" %%%LICENSE_START(VERBATIM)
5 .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
6 .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
7 .\" preserved on all copies.
9 .\" Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
10 .\" manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the
11 .\" entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
12 .\" permission notice identical to this one.
14 .\" Since the Linux kernel and libraries are constantly changing, this
15 .\" manual page may be incorrect or out-of-date. The author(s) assume no
16 .\" responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
17 .\" the use of the information contained herein. The author(s) may not
18 .\" have taken the same level of care in the production of this manual,
19 .\" which is licensed free of charge, as they might when working
22 .\" Formatted or processed versions of this manual, if unaccompanied by
23 .\" the source, must acknowledge the copyright and authors of this work.
26 .\" Modified by Michael Haardt <michael@moria.de>
27 .\" Modified 1993-07-23 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
28 .\" Modified 1996-01-13 by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no>
29 .\" Modified 1996-01-22 by aeb, following a remark by
30 .\" Tigran Aivazian <tigran@sco.com>
31 .\" Modified 1996-04-14 by aeb, following a remark by
32 .\" Robert Bihlmeyer <robbe@orcus.ping.at>
33 .\" Modified 1996-10-22 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
34 .\" Modified 2001-05-04 by aeb, following a remark by
35 .\" HÃ¥vard Lygre <hklygre@online.no>
36 .\" Modified 2001-04-17 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
37 .\" Modified 2002-06-13 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
38 .\" Added note on nonstandard behavior when SIGCHLD is ignored.
39 .\" Modified 2002-07-09 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
40 .\" Enhanced descriptions of 'resource' values
41 .\" Modified 2003-11-28 by aeb, added RLIMIT_CORE
42 .\" Modified 2004-03-26 by aeb, added RLIMIT_AS
43 .\" Modified 2004-06-16 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
44 .\" Added notes on CAP_SYS_RESOURCE
46 .\" 2004-11-16 -- mtk: the getrlimit.2 page, which formally included
47 .\" coverage of getrusage(2), has been split, so that the latter
48 .\" is now covered in its own getrusage.2.
50 .\" Modified 2004-11-16, mtk: A few other minor changes
51 .\" Modified 2004-11-23, mtk
52 .\" Added notes on RLIMIT_MEMLOCK, RLIMIT_NPROC, and RLIMIT_RSS
53 .\" to "CONFORMING TO"
54 .\" Modified 2004-11-25, mtk
55 .\" Rewrote discussion on RLIMIT_MEMLOCK to incorporate kernel
57 .\" Added note on RLIMIT_CPU error in older kernels
58 .\" 2004-11-03, mtk, Added RLIMIT_SIGPENDING
59 .\" 2005-07-13, mtk, documented RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE limit.
60 .\" 2005-07-28, mtk, Added descriptions of RLIMIT_NICE and RLIMIT_RTPRIO
61 .\" 2008-05-07, mtk / Peter Zijlstra, Added description of RLIMIT_RTTIME
62 .\" 2010-11-06, mtk: Added documentation of prlimit()
64 .TH GETRLIMIT 2 2016-10-08 "Linux" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
66 getrlimit, setrlimit, prlimit \- get/set resource limits
68 .B #include <sys/time.h>
70 .B #include <sys/resource.h>
72 .BI "int getrlimit(int " resource ", struct rlimit *" rlim );
74 .BI "int setrlimit(int " resource ", const struct rlimit *" rlim );
76 .BI "int prlimit(pid_t " pid ", int " resource \
77 ", const struct rlimit *" new_limit ,
79 .BI " struct rlimit *" old_limit );
82 Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see
83 .BR feature_test_macros (7)):
93 system calls get and set resource limits respectively.
94 Each resource has an associated soft and hard limit, as defined by the
101 rlim_t rlim_cur; /* Soft limit */
102 rlim_t rlim_max; /* Hard limit (ceiling for rlim_cur) */
107 The soft limit is the value that the kernel enforces for the
108 corresponding resource.
109 The hard limit acts as a ceiling for the soft limit:
110 an unprivileged process may set only its soft limit to a value in the
111 range from 0 up to the hard limit, and (irreversibly) lower its hard limit.
112 A privileged process (under Linux: one with the
114 capability) may make arbitrary changes to either limit value.
118 denotes no limit on a resource (both in the structure returned by
120 and in the structure passed to
125 argument must be one of:
128 This is the maximum size of the process's virtual memory
129 (address space) in bytes.
130 .\" since 2.0.27 / 2.1.12
131 This limit affects calls to
136 which fail with the error
138 upon exceeding this limit.
139 Also automatic stack expansion will fail
142 that kills the process if no alternate stack
143 has been made available via
144 .BR sigaltstack (2)).
145 Since the value is a \fIlong\fP, on machines with a 32-bit \fIlong\fP
146 either this limit is at most 2 GiB, or this resource is unlimited.
149 This is the maximum size of a
153 that the process may dump.
154 When 0 no core dump files are created.
155 When nonzero, larger dumps are truncated to this size.
158 This is a limit, in seconds,
159 on the amount of CPU time that the process can consume.
160 When the process reaches the soft limit, it is sent a
163 The default action for this signal is to terminate the process.
164 However, the signal can be caught, and the handler can return control to
166 If the process continues to consume CPU time, it will be sent
168 once per second until the hard limit is reached, at which time
171 (This latter point describes Linux behavior.
172 Implementations vary in how they treat processes which continue to
173 consume CPU time after reaching the soft limit.
174 Portable applications that need to catch this signal should
175 perform an orderly termination upon first receipt of
179 This is the maximum size of the process's data segment (initialized data,
180 uninitialized data, and heap).
181 This limit affects calls to
185 which fail with the error
187 upon encountering the soft limit of this resource.
190 This is the maximum size of files that the process may create.
191 Attempts to extend a file beyond this limit result in delivery of a
194 By default, this signal terminates a process, but a process can
195 catch this signal instead, in which case the relevant system call (e.g.,
201 .BR RLIMIT_LOCKS " (Early Linux 2.4 only)"
202 .\" to be precise: Linux 2.4.0-test9; no longer in 2.4.25 / 2.5.65
203 This is a limit on the combined number of
207 leases that this process may establish.
210 This is the maximum number of bytes of memory that may be locked
212 This limit is in effect rounded down to the nearest multiple
213 of the system page size.
222 Since Linux 2.6.9 it also affects the
225 operation, where it sets a maximum on the total bytes in
226 shared memory segments (see
228 that may be locked by the real user ID of the calling process.
232 locks are accounted for separately from the per-process memory
239 a process can lock bytes up to this limit in each of these
242 In Linux kernels before 2.6.9, this limit controlled the amount of
243 memory that could be locked by a privileged process.
244 Since Linux 2.6.9, no limits are placed on the amount of memory
245 that a privileged process may lock, and this limit instead governs
246 the amount of memory that an unprivileged process may lock.
248 .BR RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE " (since Linux 2.6.8)"
249 This is a limit on the number of bytes that can be allocated
250 for POSIX message queues for the real user ID of the calling process.
251 This limit is enforced for
253 Each message queue that the user creates counts (until it is removed)
254 against this limit according to the formula:
259 bytes = attr.mq_maxmsg * sizeof(struct msg_msg) +
260 min(attr.mq_maxmsg, MQ_PRIO_MAX) *
261 sizeof(struct posix_msg_tree_node)+
263 attr.mq_maxmsg * attr.mq_msgsize;
264 /* For message data */
266 Linux 3.4 and earlier:
268 bytes = attr.mq_maxmsg * sizeof(struct msg_msg *) +
270 attr.mq_maxmsg * attr.mq_msgsize;
271 /* For message data */
278 structure specified as the fourth argument to
283 .I posix_msg_tree_node
284 structures are kernel-internal structures.
286 The "overhead" addend in the formula accounts for overhead
287 bytes required by the implementation
288 and ensures that the user cannot
289 create an unlimited number of zero-length messages (such messages
290 nevertheless each consume some system memory for bookkeeping overhead).
292 .BR RLIMIT_NICE " (since Linux 2.6.12, but see BUGS below)"
293 This specifies a ceiling to which the process's nice value can be raised using
297 The actual ceiling for the nice value is calculated as
298 .IR "20\ \-\ rlim_cur" .
299 The useful range for this limit is thus from 1
300 (corresponding to a nice value of 19) to 40
301 (corresponding to a nice value of -20).
302 This unusual choice of range is was necessary
303 because negative numbers cannot be specified
304 as resource limit values, since they typically have special meanings.
307 typically is the same as \-1.
308 For more detail on the nice value, see
312 This specifies a value one greater than the maximum file descriptor number
313 that can be opened by this process.
319 to exceed this limit yield the error
321 (Historically, this limit was named
326 This is the maximum number of processes
327 (or, more precisely on Linux, threads)
328 that can be created for the real user ID of the calling process.
329 Upon encountering this limit,
333 This limit is not enforced for processes that have either the
340 This is a limit (in bytes) on the process's resident set
341 (the number of virtual pages resident in RAM).
342 This limit has effect only in Linux 2.4.x, x < 30, and there
343 affects only calls to
347 .\" As at kernel 2.6.12, this limit still does nothing in 2.6 though
348 .\" talk of making it do something has surfaced from time to time in LKML
351 .BR RLIMIT_RTPRIO " (since Linux 2.6.12, but see BUGS)"
352 This specifies a ceiling on the real-time priority that may be set for
354 .BR sched_setscheduler (2)
356 .BR sched_setparam (2).
358 For further details on real-time scheduling policies, see
361 .BR RLIMIT_RTTIME " (since Linux 2.6.25)"
362 This is a limit (in microseconds)
363 on the amount of CPU time that a process scheduled
364 under a real-time scheduling policy may consume without making a blocking
366 For the purpose of this limit,
367 each time a process makes a blocking system call,
368 the count of its consumed CPU time is reset to zero.
369 The CPU time count is not reset if the process continues trying to
370 use the CPU but is preempted, its time slice expires, or it calls
373 Upon reaching the soft limit, the process is sent a
376 If the process catches or ignores this signal and
377 continues consuming CPU time, then
379 will be generated once each second until the hard limit is reached,
380 at which point the process is sent a
384 The intended use of this limit is to stop a runaway
385 real-time process from locking up the system.
387 For further details on real-time scheduling policies, see
390 .BR RLIMIT_SIGPENDING " (since Linux 2.6.8)"
391 This is a limit on the number of signals
392 that may be queued for the real user ID of the calling process.
393 Both standard and real-time signals are counted for the purpose of
395 However, the limit is enforced only for
397 it is always possible to use
399 to queue one instance of any of the signals that are not already
400 queued to the process.
401 .\" This replaces the /proc/sys/kernel/rtsig-max system-wide limit
402 .\" that was present in kernels <= 2.6.7. MTK Dec 04
405 This is the maximum size of the process stack, in bytes.
406 Upon reaching this limit, a
409 To handle this signal, a process must employ an alternate signal stack
410 .RB ( sigaltstack (2)).
413 this limit also determines the amount of space used for the process's
414 command-line arguments and environment variables; for details, see
417 .\" commit c022a0acad534fd5f5d5f17280f6d4d135e74e81
418 .\" Author: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
419 .\" Date: Tue May 4 18:03:50 2010 +0200
421 .\" rlimits: implement prlimit64 syscall
423 .\" commit 6a1d5e2c85d06da35cdfd93f1a27675bfdc3ad8c
424 .\" Author: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.cz>
425 .\" Date: Wed Mar 24 17:06:58 2010 +0100
427 .\" rlimits: add rlimit64 structure
431 system call combines and extends the functionality of
435 It can be used to both set and get the resource limits of an arbitrary process.
439 argument has the same meaning as for
446 argument is a not NULL, then the
448 structure to which it points is used to set new values for
449 the soft and hard limits for
453 argument is a not NULL, then a successful call to
455 places the previous soft and hard limits for
459 structure pointed to by
464 argument specifies the ID of the process on which the call is to operate.
467 is 0, then the call applies to the calling process.
468 To set or get the resources of a process other than itself,
469 the caller must have the
471 capability in the user namespace of the process
472 whose resource limits are being changed, or the
473 real, effective, and saved set user IDs of the target process
474 must match the real user ID of the caller
476 the real, effective, and saved set group IDs of the target process
477 must match the real group ID of the caller.
478 .\" FIXME . this permission check is strange
479 .\" Asked about this on LKML, 7 Nov 2010
480 .\" "Inconsistent credential checking in prlimit() syscall"
482 On success, these system calls return 0.
483 On error, \-1 is returned, and
485 is set appropriately.
489 A pointer argument points to a location
490 outside the accessible address space.
493 The value specified in
502 .IR rlim\->rlim_max .
505 An unprivileged process tried to raise the hard limit; the
507 capability is required to do this.
510 The caller tried to increase the hard
512 limit above the maximum defined by
513 .IR /proc/sys/fs/nr_open
519 The calling process did not have permission to set limits
520 for the process specified by
524 Could not find a process with the ID specified in
529 system call is available since Linux 2.6.36.
530 Library support is available since glibc 2.13.
532 For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
538 Interface Attribute Value
543 T} Thread safety MT-Safe
549 POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
557 derive from BSD and are not specified in POSIX.1;
558 they are present on the BSDs and Linux, but on few other implementations.
560 derives from BSD and is not specified in POSIX.1;
561 it is nevertheless present on most implementations.
562 .BR RLIMIT_MSGQUEUE ,
570 A child process created via
572 inherits its parent's resource limits.
573 Resource limits are preserved across
576 Lowering the soft limit for a resource below the process's
577 current consumption of that resource will succeed
578 (but will prevent the process from further increasing
579 its consumption of the resource).
581 One can set the resource limits of the shell using the built-in
587 The shell's resource limits are inherited by the processes that
588 it creates to execute commands.
590 Since Linux 2.6.24, the resource limits of any process can be inspected via
591 .IR /proc/[pid]/limits ;
595 Ancient systems provided a
597 function with a similar purpose to
599 For backward compatibility, glibc also provides
601 All new applications should be written using
603 .SS C library/ kernel ABI differences
604 Since version 2.13, the glibc
608 wrapper functions no longer invoke the corresponding system calls,
611 for the reasons described in BUGS.
613 The name of the glibc wrapper function is
615 the underlying system call is
618 In older Linux kernels, the
622 signals delivered when a process encountered the soft and hard
624 limits were delivered one (CPU) second later than they should have been.
625 This was fixed in kernel 2.6.8.
627 In 2.6.x kernels before 2.6.17, a
629 limit of 0 is wrongly treated as "no limit" (like
631 Since Linux 2.6.17, setting a limit of 0 does have an effect,
632 but is actually treated as a limit of 1 second.
633 .\" see http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=114008066530167&w=2
635 A kernel bug means that
636 .\" See https://lwn.net/Articles/145008/
638 does not work in kernel 2.6.12; the problem is fixed in kernel 2.6.13.
640 In kernel 2.6.12, there was an off-by-one mismatch
641 between the priority ranges returned by
645 This had the effect that the actual ceiling for the nice value
647 .IR "19\ \-\ rlim_cur" .
648 This was fixed in kernel 2.6.13.
649 .\" see http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112256338703880&w=2
652 .\" The relevant patch, sent to LKML, seems to be
653 .\" http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/273462
654 .\" From: Roland McGrath <roland <at> redhat.com>
655 .\" Subject: [PATCH 7/7] make RLIMIT_CPU/SIGXCPU per-process
656 .\" Date: 2005-01-23 23:27:46 GMT
657 if a process reaches its soft
659 limit and has a handler installed for
661 then, in addition to invoking the signal handler,
662 the kernel increases the soft limit by one second.
663 This behavior repeats if the process continues to consume CPU time,
664 until the hard limit is reached,
665 at which point the process is killed.
666 Other implementations
667 .\" Tested Solaris 10, FreeBSD 9, OpenBSD 5.0
670 soft limit in this manner,
671 and the Linux behavior is probably not standards conformant;
672 portable applications should avoid relying on this Linux-specific behavior.
673 .\" FIXME . https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=50951
676 limit exhibits the same behavior when the soft limit is encountered.
678 Kernels before 2.4.22 did not diagnose the error
685 .IR rlim\->rlim_max .
687 .SS Representation of """large""" resource limit values on 32-bit platforms
692 wrapper functions use a 64-bit
694 data type, even on 32-bit platforms.
697 data type used in the
701 system calls is a (32-bit)
702 .IR "unsigned long" .
703 Furthermore, in Linux versions before 2.6.36,
704 the kernel represents resource limits on 32-bit platforms as
705 .IR "unsigned long" .
706 However, a 32-bit data type is not wide enough.
707 .\" https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5042
708 .\" http://sources.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12201
709 The most pertinent limit here is
711 which specifies the maximum size to which a file can grow:
712 to be useful, this limit must be represented using a type
713 that is as wide as the type used to
714 represent file offsets\(emthat is, as wide as a 64-bit
716 (assuming a program compiled with
717 .IR _FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 ).
719 To work around this kernel limitation,
720 if a program tried to set a resource limit to a value larger than
721 can be represented in a 32-bit
722 .IR "unsigned long" ,
725 wrapper function silently converted the limit value to
727 In other words, the requested resource limit setting was silently ignored.
729 This problem was addressed in Linux 2.6.36 with two principal changes:
731 the addition of a new kernel representation of resource limits that
732 uses 64 bits, even on 32-bit platforms;
736 system call, which employs 64-bit values for its resource limit arguments.
739 .\" https://www.sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=12201
740 glibc works around the limitations of the
744 system calls by implementing
748 as wrapper functions that call
751 The program below demonstrates the use of
756 #define _FILE_OFFSET_BITS 64
761 #include <sys/resource.h>
763 #define errExit(msg) do { perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); \\
767 main(int argc, char *argv[])
769 struct rlimit old, new;
773 if (!(argc == 2 || argc == 4)) {
774 fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <pid> [<new\-soft\-limit> "
775 "<new\-hard\-limit>]\\n", argv[0]);
779 pid = atoi(argv[1]); /* PID of target process */
783 new.rlim_cur = atoi(argv[2]);
784 new.rlim_max = atoi(argv[3]);
788 /* Set CPU time limit of target process; retrieve and display
791 if (prlimit(pid, RLIMIT_CPU, newp, &old) == \-1)
792 errExit("prlimit\-1");
793 printf("Previous limits: soft=%lld; hard=%lld\\n",
794 (long long) old.rlim_cur, (long long) old.rlim_max);
796 /* Retrieve and display new CPU time limit */
798 if (prlimit(pid, RLIMIT_CPU, NULL, &old) == \-1)
799 errExit("prlimit\-2");
800 printf("New limits: soft=%lld; hard=%lld\\n",
801 (long long) old.rlim_cur, (long long) old.rlim_max);
822 .BR capabilities (7),