Linux Intermediate

What is Ulimit?

A command that sets or displays resource limits for user processes, such as maximum open files or memory usage.

Ulimit controls per-process resource limits. Common limits include open files (-n), maximum processes (-u), stack size (-s), and file size (-f). View current limits with ulimit -a.

Limits are set per session or permanently in /etc/security/limits.conf. Web servers and databases often need increased file descriptor limits (e.g., ulimit -n 65535) to handle many concurrent connections.

Related Terms

A command-line interface that interprets user commands and passes them to the operating system for execution.

ACL (Access Control List)

An extension to standard Linux file permissions that allows setting fine-grained access rights for specific users and groups beyond owner/group/other.

Package Manager

A tool that automates the process of installing, updating, configuring, and removing software packages.

A command that builds and executes commands from standard input, useful for processing lists of items.

A command to change file and directory access permissions using numeric or symbolic notation.

Security-Enhanced Linux — a mandatory access control system that confines programs to minimum required privileges beyond standard file permissions.

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