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Date:      Mon, 14 Dec 1998 12:57:52 +1100
From:      Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au>
To:        Ben Smithurst <ben@scientia.demon.co.uk>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: cannot fork
Message-ID:  <19981214125752.03927@welearn.com.au>
In-Reply-To: <19981213204136.A17472@scientia.demon.co.uk>; from Ben Smithurst on Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 08:41:36PM %2B0000
References:  <19981213211314.57505@welearn.com.au> <19981213145942.D10841@scientia.demon.co.uk> <19981214070131.32240@welearn.com.au> <19981213204136.A17472@scientia.demon.co.uk>

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On Sun, Dec 13, 1998 at 08:41:36PM +0000, Ben Smithurst wrote:
> Sue Blake wrote:
> 
> > Thanks Ben, it sounds like you're on the right track here even though
> > I understand ver little of what you've said.  Could you translate some
> > of it into "do this" style?
> >
> > I get that 'limits' is a command I can type, and it comes back with
> > maxprocesses-cur 64
> 
> What does
> 
> $ sysctl kern.maxproc
> 
> show? That's the system wide limit, which may be higher than your user
> limit. I'm guessing that while you're running X you could easily get 64
> processes. (`ps ax | wc -l' will tell you how many procs you have, near
> enough anyway.)

When I was supposed to be limited to 64 processes, I couldn't run more
than about 44 as shown with ps. Not a problem though. There must be a
few things going on that ps (as I'm using it) doesn't show.

> If kern.maxproc is a lot higher than 64, you can probably just alter
> some settings in /etc/login.conf to increase the per-user limits
> (following the instructions at the top of login.conf about rebuilding
> the database). To find out which class you are in, do `limits -U sue',
> or something:
> 
> $ limits -U ben
> Resource limits for class staff:
> 
> shows I'm in the `staff' class. You can change your class if needed
> using vipw, it's the fifth field along (which may well be blank, and can
> safely be left blank).

I was in default class. There's an xuser class but its 48 processes
seems a bit lean. As an experiment, I made another class:

sueclass:\
         :maxproc-cur=100:\
         :tc=default:

and did the "don't forget to" database thing like the file said, also
added myself to that class with vipw, then took a fresh login as my
humble self.

Now ps shows me 76 processes before I'm grounded, instead of 44.

That'll do fine, and I know how to change it and why :-)

> If kern.maxproc isn't much higher, rebuild your kernel,
> replacing the maxusers line in the kernel config file with
> 
> maxusers	64
> 
> or some such value. Reboot, check kern.maxproc and your limits, and see
> if things are working better.

Not necessary immediately, but that change is now ready for the
kernel rebuild in case I need to go much higher.

Thanks much for the full instructions!
I hope others who need this detail find it too.

-- 

Regards,
        -*Sue*-


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