ulimit -n not persisting, tried everything

Question

I need to increase ulimit -n on Ubuntu 12.04. It's currently:

open files                      (-n) 1024

(1024 soft, 4096 hard)

In /etc/security/limits.conf I have:

root soft nofile 10240
root hard nofile 10240

In /etc/pam.d/login, /etc/pam.d/common-session, /etc/pam.d/common-session-noninteractive I have

session    required   pam_limits.so

However, ulimit -n keeps resetting to 1024. I need to increase it as I use Node.js / socket.io with forever and the limit is limiting the maximum of concurrent visitors / connections.

Keeps resetting when? At reboot? Every hour? Randomly? – Daniel Widrick Sep 23 '13 at 08:22 — Daniel Widrick, Sep 23 '13 at 08:22
@gladoscc - Did you figure this out in the end? – UpTheCreek Dec 09 '13 at 11:21 — UpTheCreek, Dec 09 '13 at 11:21

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 23 '13 at 08:36

1

How do you start your program?

Try to wrap the start code for your program with something like this:

/bin/bash -c "ulimit -n 4096; exec /usr/bin/node /PATH_TO/YOUR_PROGRAM.js"

answered Sep 23 '13 at 08:36

dsmsk80

5,817
18
22

1

I'm using forever to start the program. – apscience Sep 23 '13 at 14:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 23 '13 at 08:58

0

Do you have anything like /etc/limits.d/* ? Have you tried turning SELinux off (if you have it turned on)?

answered Sep 23 '13 at 08:58

David Lakatos

303
1
10

No. I don't have selinux. – apscience Sep 23 '13 at 10:20

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 23 '13 at 11:19

-1

Add ulimit -n 10240 to /root/.bashrc

answered Sep 23 '13 at 11:19

Maxat Kulmanov

164
5

This'll affect forever / node.js? – apscience Sep 23 '13 at 14:41
1

It will persist forever but only affect things running in bash using root's profile and executing the .bashrc. – Falcon Momot Sep 24 '13 at 01:53
You shouldn't really be running node as root in production – UpTheCreek Dec 09 '13 at 12:39

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered May 30 '15 at 21:05

The same problem exists in Debian 8, when Im running Redis via the init script it came with. Lost 16 hours writing configs & rebooting trying to get past the limit of 1020 connections running as non-root. Im going to run it as root. AFAIK the apache server is working this way: starts as root, sets the process limits & drops the uid to www-data.

ulimit -n not persisting, tried everything

4 Answers4