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1 .\" $NetBSD: ulimit.3,v 1.9 2010/04/30 05:09:23 jruoho Exp $
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30 .Dd April 30, 2010
31 .Dt ULIMIT 3
32 .Os
33 .Sh NAME
34 .Nm ulimit
35 .Nd get and set process limits
36 .Sh LIBRARY
37 .Lb libc
38 .Sh SYNOPSIS
39 .In ulimit.h
40 .Ft long int
41 .Fn ulimit "int cmd" ...
42 .Sh DESCRIPTION
43 The
44 .Fn ulimit
45 function provides a method to query or alter resource limits of the calling
46 process.
47 The method to be performed is specified by the
48 .Fa cmd
49 argument; possible values are:
50 .Bl -tag -width UL_GETFSIZEXX
51 .It Li UL_GETFSIZE
52 Return the soft file size limit of the process.
53 The value returned is in units of 512-byte blocks.
54 If the result cannot be represented in an object of type
55 .Fa long int ,
56 the result is unspecified.
57 .It Li UL_SETFSIZE
58 Set the hard and soft file size limits of the process to the value of the
59 second argument passed, which is in units of 512-byte blocks, and which is
60 expected to be of type
61 .Fa long int .
62 The new file size limit of the process is returned.
63 Any process may decrease the limit, but raising it is only permitted if
64 the caller is the super-user.
65 .El
66 .Pp
67 If successful, the
68 .Fn ulimit
69 function will not change the setting of
70 .Va errno .
71 .Sh RETURN VALUES
72 If successful, the
73 .Fn ulimit
74 function returns the value of the requested limit.
75 Otherwise, it returns \-1, sets
76 .Va errno
77 to indicate an error, and the limit is not changed.
78 Therefore, to detect an error condition applications should set
79 .Va errno
80 to 0, call
81 .Fn ulimit ,
82 and check if \-1 is returned and
83 .Va errno
84 is non-zero.
85 .Sh ERRORS
86 The
87 .Fn ulimit
88 function will fail if:
89 .Bl -tag -width Er
90 .It Bq Er EINVAL
91 The
92 .Fa cmd
93 argument is not valid.
94 .It Bq Er EPERM
95 It was attempted to increase a limit, and the caller is not the super-user.
96 .El
97 .Sh SEE ALSO
98 .Xr getrlimit 2 ,
99 .Xr setrlimit 2
100 .Sh STANDARDS
101 The
102 .Fn ulimit
103 function conforms to
104 .St -xsh5
105 and
106 .St -p1003.1-2001 .
107 It was marked as obsolete in the
108 .St -p1003.1-2008
109 revision, which recommended the use of
110 .Xr getrlimit 2
111 and
112 .Xr setrlimit 2
113 instead, noting that because
114 .Fn ulimit
115 uses the type
116 .Vt long
117 rather than
118 .Vt rlim_t ,
119 it may not be sufficient for file sizes on many current systems.