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<html> <head> <title>ulimit</title> <META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="ulimit"> </head> <body BGCOLOR="#ffffff" LINK="#0000ff" VLINK="#0000ff" ALINK="#0000ff" TEXT="#000000"> <center> <h1><b>ulimit</b></h1></center> <PRE> <STRONG><A HREF="/man3/ULIMIT">ULIMIT(3)</A></STRONG> Linux Programmer's Manual <STRONG><A HREF="/man3/ULIMIT">ULIMIT(3)</A></STRONG> NAME ulimit - get and set user limits SYNOPSIS #include <ulimit.h> long ulimit(int cmd, long newlimit); DESCRIPTION Warning: this routine is obsolete. Use <STRONG><A HREF="/man2/getrlimit">getrlimit(2)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man2/setrlimit">setrlimit(2)</A></STRONG>, and <STRONG><A HREF="/man3/sysconf">sysconf(3)</A></STRONG> instead. For the shell command ulimit(), see <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/bash">bash(1)</A></STRONG>. The ulimit() call will get or set some limit for the calling process. The cmd argument can have one of the following values. UL_GETFSIZE Return the limit on the size of a file, in units of 512 bytes. UL_SETFSIZE Set the limit on the size of a file. 3 (Not implemented for Linux.) Return the maximum possible ad- dress of the data segment. 4 (Implemented but no symbolic constant provided.) Return the maximum number of files that the calling process can open. RETURN VALUE On success, ulimit() returns a nonnegative value. On error, -1 is re- turned, and errno is set appropriately. ERRORS EPERM An unprivileged process tried to increase a limit. ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see at- <STRONG><A HREF="/man7/tributes">tributes(7)</A></STRONG>. +----------+---------------+---------+ |Interface | Attribute | Value | +----------+---------------+---------+ |ulimit() | Thread safety | MT-Safe | +----------+---------------+---------+ CONFORMING TO SVr4, POSIX.1-2001. POSIX.1-2008 marks ulimit() as obsolete. SEE ALSO <STRONG><A HREF="/man1/bash">bash(1)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man2/getrlimit">getrlimit(2)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man2/setrlimit">setrlimit(2)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="/man3/sysconf">sysconf(3)</A></STRONG> COLOPHON This page is part of release 5.05 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/. Linux 2017-09-15 <STRONG><A HREF="/man3/ULIMIT">ULIMIT(3)</A></STRONG></PRE> <center> <h6>Man Pages Copyright Respective Owners. Site Copyright (C) 1994 - 2025 <a href="http://www.he.net">Hurricane Electric</a>. All Rights Reserved.</h6></center> </body> </html>