Using RHAS 2.1.x…
Using ksh.

Questions:
1) How do you enable any user to have the “sysops” privilege to increase ulimit settings?
2) or, How do you affect the default file handle (descriptor) limit?

As it stands, every session begins with the default limit of 1024, and only root can up the limit (ex: ulimit -n 8192). I’ve attempted to add users to the root group (only as a test) but that doesn’t allow them to up the limit.

I have tried everything (I think), except for a kernel rebuild (which shouldn't have to be performed for this!), to affect the default file handle maximum:
1) /etc/security/limits.conf
2) /etc/pam.d/login
3) /etc/profile
4) a users individual .profile
5) /proc/sys/fs/files-max

Any suggestions?

Many Thanks,
Rob

Forgot to add that in addition to using ksh, the userid's in question are not local accounts, but are obtained from yp services...however, I tested creating a local account and still the same behavior...

I *believe* the only option you have is to change it in the code and
recompile. root can raise the hard limit for root, but not for anyone
else. This is stupid (in my opinion), it should at least allow root to
change it for a given uid.

Moses...thanks. I too believe that a recompile is the only way too. Agree with your opinion re: the ulimit call being limited as it is. What's funny is that RHAS is targeted for high availability / scalability / throughput environments but apparently someone believes that the processes supporting the environment are to be run as root? In the environments I routinely run in, I'll hit the file descriptor and other default limits very quickly. True, not too many kernels are tuned out-of-the-box for large scale / clustered environments, but the parameters I am dealing with at this point are very rudementary.

Anyway, enough of my diatribe...thanks again for the response...

Regards,
Rob

Do you happen to know what the max limit can be set to?
Do you know where i can look for this information? What man page is this stuff in? THANKS!