ulimit

SYNOPSIS
       ulimit [-f][blocks]

DESCRIPTION
       The  ulimit  utility  shall  set  or report the file-size writing limit
       imposed on files written by the shell and its child processes (files of
       any  size  may be read). Only a process with appropriate privileges can
       increase the limit.

OPTIONS
       The ulimit utility shall conform to  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of
       IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following option shall be supported:

       -f     Set  (or report, if no blocks operand is present), the file size
              limit in blocks. The -f option shall also be the default case.


OPERANDS
       The following operand shall be supported:

       blocks The number of 512-byte blocks to use as the new file size limit.


STDIN
       Not used.

INPUT FILES
       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       The following environment  variables  shall  affect  the  execution  of
       ulimit:

       LANG   Provide  a  default value for the internationalization variables
              that are unset or null. (See  the  Base  Definitions  volume  of
              IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,  Section  8.2,  Internationalization Vari-
              ables for the precedence of internationalization variables  used
              to determine the values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL If  set  to a non-empty string value, override the values of all
              the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE
              Determine the locale for  the  interpretation  of  sequences  of
              bytes  of  text  data as characters (for example, single-byte as
              opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
              Determine the locale that should be used to  affect  the  format
              and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.



              "%d\n", <number of 512-byte blocks>

       If there is no current limit on the number  of  blocks,  in  the  POSIX
       locale the following format shall be used:


              "unlimited\n"

STDERR
       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES
       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
       None.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0     Successful completion.

       >0     A request for a higher limit was rejected or an error occurred.


CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE
       Since  ulimit  affects  the  current shell execution environment, it is
       always provided as a shell regular built-in. If it is called in a sepa-
       rate utility execution environment, such as one of the following:


              nohup ulimit -f 10000
              env ulimit 10000

       it does not affect the file size limit of the caller's environment.

       Once  a  limit  has been decreased by a process, it cannot be increased
       (unless appropriate privileges are involved), even back to the original
       system limit.

EXAMPLES
       Set the file size limit to 51200 bytes:


              ulimit -f 100

RATIONALE
       Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003  by  the  Institute  of
       Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
       event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
       The  Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
       is the referee document. The original Standard can be  obtained  online
       at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .



IEEE/The Open Group                  2003                            ULIMIT(P)