Setup "open files" limit in Linux per user. Cannot setup more than 1024

Question

I try to increase open file limit for certain user on CentOS 5.5 Linux. I added a new line to /etc/security/limits.conf:

seed     hard    nofile          10240

Then do test:

runuser -s /bin/bash - seed -c "ulimit -S -c 0>/dev/null 2>&1; ulimit -a"
0
core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals                 (-i) 8185
max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 32
max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 1024
pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 10240
cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) unlimited
virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited

And as you can see - open file limit is still 1024. If I set up the limit as 1000, it will be applied. So, I cannot setup the limit more than 1024.

How can I do that?? I need to set up the settings only for 1 user, not system-wide.

Solution 1

I suspect runuser doesn't go through PAM's "login" process that applies limits.conf, or maybe pam_limits.so is disabled. In Debian, at least, /etc/pam.d/su has pam_limits.so commented out so that the limits are inherited from the user running su.

Solution 2

To increase open file limit for certain user on CentOS 5.5 Linux:

1 - in file '/etc/security/limits.conf' add: - http://gerardnico.com/wiki/linux/limits.conf

...
# seed osuser - extended max number of open files
seed    hard    nofile    10240

# End of file

2 - in file '/etc/profile' or in '/home/seed/.bash_profile' add:

if [ $USER = "seed" ]; then
        ulimit -n 10240
fi

Comments

[Chris Nava]

1024 is a lot of open files...blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/01/1775‌​759.aspx

[Zoredache]

@Chris Nava, That is nice in theory, but there are many services that will not reliably operate given that limit. Also 1024 isn't an OS limit is a resource limit placed on accounts.

[MastaJeet]

1024 isn't a lot of open file nowadays.

[Andrey Zentavr]

[root@seedbox01 ~]# cat /etc/passwd | grep seed seed:x:501:501::/home/seed:/bin/bash

[Andrey Zentavr]

[root@seedbox01 ~]# cat /etc/pam.d/runuser #%PAM-1.0 auth sufficient pam_rootok.so session optional pam_keyinit.so revoke session required pam_limits.so session required pam_unix.so

[Andrey Zentavr]

Suggestion #1 did not helped me, but #2 - yes.

[Matthew Ife]

This is definitely the reason. I've deleted my answer as you were first :).