limits.conf(5) — Linux manual page

NAME | DESCRIPTION | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

LIMITS.CONF(5)              Linux-PAM Manual              LIMITS.CONF(5)

NAME         top

       limits.conf - configuration file for the pam_limits module

DESCRIPTION         top

       The pam_limits.so module applies ulimit limits, nice priority and
       number of simultaneous login sessions limit to user login
       sessions. This description of the configuration file syntax
       applies to the /etc/security/limits.conf file and *.conf files in
       the /etc/security/limits.d directory.

       The syntax of the lines is as follows:

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

       The fields listed above should be filled as follows:

       <domain>

           •   a username

           •   a groupname, with @group syntax. This should not be
               confused with netgroups.

           •   the wildcard *, for default entry.

           •   the wildcard %, for maxlogins limit only, can also be
               used with %group syntax. If the % wildcard is used alone
               it is identical to using * with maxsyslogins limit. With
               a group specified after % it limits the total number of
               logins of all users that are member of the group.

           •   an uid range specified as <min_uid>:<max_uid>. If min_uid
               is omitted, the match is exact for the max_uid. If
               max_uid is omitted, all uids greater than or equal
               min_uid match.

           •   a gid range specified as @<min_gid>:<max_gid>. If min_gid
               is omitted, the match is exact for the max_gid. If
               max_gid is omitted, all gids greater than or equal
               min_gid match. For the exact match all groups including
               the user's supplementary groups are examined. For the
               range matches only the user's primary group is examined.

           •   a gid specified as %:<gid> applicable to maxlogins limit
               only. It limits the total number of logins of all users
               that are member of the group with the specified gid.

       <type>

           hard
               for enforcing hard resource limits. These limits are set
               by the superuser and enforced by the Kernel. The user
               cannot raise his requirement of system resources above
               such values.

           soft
               for enforcing soft resource limits. These limits are ones
               that the user can move up or down within the permitted
               range by any pre-existing hard limits. The values
               specified with this token can be thought of as default
               values, for normal system usage.

           -
               for enforcing both soft and hard resource limits
               together.

               Note, if you specify a type of '-' but neglect to supply
               the item and value fields then the module will never
               enforce any limits on the specified user/group etc. .

       <item>

           core
               limits the core file size (KB)

           data
               maximum data size (KB)

           fsize
               maximum filesize (KB)

           memlock
               maximum locked-in-memory address space (KB)

           nofile
               maximum number of open file descriptors

           rss
               maximum resident set size (KB) (Ignored in Linux 2.4.30
               and higher)

           stack
               maximum stack size (KB)

           cpu
               maximum CPU time (minutes)

           nproc
               maximum number of processes

           as
               address space limit (KB)

           maxlogins
               maximum number of logins for this user (this limit does
               not apply to user with uid=0)

           maxsyslogins
               maximum number of all logins on system; user is not
               allowed to log-in if total number of all user logins is
               greater than specified number (this limit does not apply
               to user with uid=0)

           nonewprivs
               value of 0 or 1; if set to 1 disables acquiring new
               privileges by invoking prctl(PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS)

           priority
               the priority to run user process with (negative values
               boost process priority)

           locks
               maximum locked files (Linux 2.4 and higher)

           sigpending
               maximum number of pending signals (Linux 2.6 and higher)

           msgqueue
               maximum memory used by POSIX message queues (bytes)
               (Linux 2.6 and higher)

           nice
               maximum nice priority allowed to raise to (Linux 2.6.12
               and higher) values: [-20,19]

           rtprio
               maximum realtime priority allowed for non-privileged
               processes (Linux 2.6.12 and higher)

       All items support the values -1, unlimited or infinity indicating
       no limit, except for priority, nice, and nonewprivs. If nofile is
       to be set to one of these values, it will be set to the contents
       of /proc/sys/fs/nr_open instead (see setrlimit(3)).

       If a hard limit or soft limit of a resource is set to a valid
       value, but outside of the supported range of the local system,
       the system may reject the new limit or unexpected behavior may
       occur. If the control value required is used, the module will
       reject the login if a limit could not be set.

       In general, individual limits have priority over group limits, so
       if you impose no limits for admin group, but one of the members
       in this group have a limits line, the user will have its limits
       set according to this line.

       Also, please note that all limit settings are set per login. They
       are not global, nor are they permanent; existing only for the
       duration of the session. One exception is the maxlogin option,
       this one is system wide. But there is a race, concurrent logins
       at the same time will not always be detect as such but only
       counted as one.

       In the limits configuration file, the '#' character introduces a
       comment - after which the rest of the line is ignored.

       The pam_limits module does report configuration problems found in
       its configuration file and errors via syslog(3).

EXAMPLES         top

       These are some example lines which might be specified in
       /etc/security/limits.conf.

           *               soft    core            0
           *               hard    nofile          512
           @student        hard    nproc           20
           @faculty        soft    nproc           20
           @faculty        hard    nproc           50
           ftp             hard    nproc           0
           @student        -       maxlogins       4
           @student        -       nonewprivs      1
           :123            hard    cpu             5000
           @500:           soft    cpu             10000
           600:700         hard    locks           10

SEE ALSO         top

       pam_limits(8), pam.d(5), pam(8), getrlimit(2), getrlimit(3p)

AUTHOR         top

       pam_limits was initially written by Cristian Gafton
       <[email protected]>

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the linux-pam (Pluggable Authentication
       Modules for Linux) project.  Information about the project can be
       found at ⟨http://www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report
       for this manual page, see ⟨//www.linux-pam.org/⟩.  This page was
       obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam.git⟩ on 2023-12-22.  (At
       that time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in
       the repository was 2023-12-18.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there
       is a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       [email protected]

Linux-PAM Manual               12/22/2023                 LIMITS.CONF(5)

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