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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.Dd July 25, 2024 29.Dt GETRLIMIT 2 30.Os 31.Sh NAME 32.Nm getrlimit , 33.Nm setrlimit 34.Nd control maximum system resource consumption 35.Sh LIBRARY 36.Lb libc 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.In sys/types.h 39.In sys/time.h 40.In sys/resource.h 41.Ft int 42.Fn getrlimit "int resource" "struct rlimit *rlp" 43.Ft int 44.Fn setrlimit "int resource" "const struct rlimit *rlp" 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46Limits on the consumption of system resources by the current process 47and each process it creates may be obtained with the 48.Fn getrlimit 49system call, and set with the 50.Fn setrlimit 51system call. 52.Pp 53The 54.Fa resource 55argument is one of the following: 56.Bl -tag -width RLIMIT_FSIZEAA 57.It Dv RLIMIT_AS 58The maximum amount (in bytes) of virtual memory the process is 59allowed to map. 60.It Dv RLIMIT_CORE 61The largest size (in bytes) 62.Xr core 5 63file that may be created. 64.It Dv RLIMIT_CPU 65The maximum amount of cpu time (in seconds) to be used by 66each process. 67.It Dv RLIMIT_DATA 68The maximum size (in bytes) of the data segment for a process; 69this defines how far a program may extend its break with the 70.Xr sbrk 2 71function. 72.It Dv RLIMIT_FSIZE 73The largest size (in bytes) file that may be created. 74.It Dv RLIMIT_KQUEUES 75The maximum number of kqueues this user id is allowed to create. 76.It Dv RLIMIT_MEMLOCK 77The maximum size (in bytes) which a process may lock into memory 78using the 79.Xr mlock 2 80system call. 81.It Dv RLIMIT_NOFILE 82The maximum number of open files for this process. 83.It Dv RLIMIT_NPROC 84The maximum number of simultaneous processes for this user id. 85.It Dv RLIMIT_NPTS 86The maximum number of pseudo-terminals this user id is allowed to create. 87.It Dv RLIMIT_RSS 88When there is memory pressure and swap is available, prioritize eviction of 89a process' resident pages beyond this amount (in bytes). 90When memory is not under pressure, this rlimit is effectively ignored. 91.Pp 92Processes that exceed their set 93.Dv RLIMIT_RSS 94are not signalled or halted. 95The limit is merely a hint to the VM daemon to prefer to deactivate pages from 96processes that have exceeded their set 97.Dv RLIMIT_RSS . 98.It Dv RLIMIT_SBSIZE 99The maximum size (in bytes) of socket buffer usage for this user. 100This limits the amount of network memory, and hence the amount of 101mbufs, that this user may hold at any time. 102.It Dv RLIMIT_STACK 103The maximum size (in bytes) of the stack segment for a process; 104this defines how far a program's stack segment may be extended. 105Stack extension is performed automatically by the system. 106.It Dv RLIMIT_SWAP 107The maximum size (in bytes) of the swap space that may be reserved or 108used by all of this user id's processes. 109This limit is enforced only if bit 1 of the 110.Va vm.overcommit 111sysctl is set. 112Please see 113.Xr tuning 7 114for a complete description of this sysctl. 115.It Dv RLIMIT_VMEM 116An alias for 117.Dv RLIMIT_AS . 118.El 119.Pp 120A resource limit is specified as a soft limit and a hard limit. 121When a soft limit is exceeded, a process might or might not receive a signal. 122For example, signals are generated when the cpu time or file size is exceeded, 123but not if the address space or RSS limit is exceeded. 124A program that exceeds the soft limit is allowed to continue execution until it 125reaches the hard limit, or modifies its own resource limit. 126Even reaching the hard limit does not necessarily halt a process. 127For example, if the RSS hard limit is exceeded, nothing happens. 128.Pp 129The 130.Vt rlimit 131structure is used to specify the hard and soft limits on a resource. 132.Bd -literal -offset indent 133struct rlimit { 134 rlim_t rlim_cur; /* current (soft) limit */ 135 rlim_t rlim_max; /* maximum value for rlim_cur */ 136}; 137.Ed 138.Pp 139Only the super-user may raise the maximum limits. 140Other users 141may only alter 142.Fa rlim_cur 143within the range from 0 to 144.Fa rlim_max 145or (irreversibly) lower 146.Fa rlim_max . 147.Pp 148An 149.Dq infinite 150value for a limit is defined as 151.Dv RLIM_INFINITY . 152.Pp 153Because this information is stored in the per-process information, 154this system call must be executed directly by the shell if it 155is to affect all future processes created by the shell; 156.Ic limit 157is thus a built-in command to 158.Xr csh 1 . 159.Pp 160The system refuses to extend the data or stack space when the limits 161would be exceeded in the normal way: a 162.Xr brk 2 163function fails if the data space limit is reached. 164When the stack limit is reached, the process receives 165a segmentation fault 166.Pq Dv SIGSEGV ; 167if this signal is not 168caught by a handler using the signal stack, this signal 169will kill the process. 170.Pp 171A file I/O operation that would create a file larger that the process' 172soft limit will cause the write to fail and a signal 173.Dv SIGXFSZ 174to be 175generated; this normally terminates the process, but may be caught. 176When 177the soft cpu time limit is exceeded, a 178.Dv SIGXCPU 179signal is sent to the 180offending process. 181.Pp 182When most operations would allocate more virtual memory than allowed by the 183soft limit of 184.Dv RLIMIT_AS , 185the operation fails with 186.Dv ENOMEM 187and no signal is raised. 188A notable exception is stack extension, described above. 189If stack extension would allocate more virtual memory than allowed by the soft 190limit of 191.Dv RLIMIT_AS , 192a 193.Dv SIGSEGV 194signal will be delivered. 195The caller is free to raise the soft address space limit up to the hard limit 196and retry the allocation. 197.Sh RETURN VALUES 198.Rv -std 199.Sh ERRORS 200The 201.Fn getrlimit 202and 203.Fn setrlimit 204system calls 205will fail if: 206.Bl -tag -width Er 207.It Bq Er EFAULT 208The address specified for 209.Fa rlp 210is invalid. 211.It Bq Er EPERM 212The limit specified to 213.Fn setrlimit 214would have 215raised the maximum limit value, and the caller is not the super-user. 216.El 217.Sh SEE ALSO 218.Xr csh 1 , 219.Xr quota 1 , 220.Xr quotactl 2 , 221.Xr sigaction 2 , 222.Xr sigaltstack 2 , 223.Xr sysctl 3 , 224.Xr ulimit 3 225.Sh HISTORY 226The 227.Fn getrlimit 228system call appeared in 229.Bx 4.2 . 230