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GETRLIMIT(2)		  FreeBSD System Calls Manual		  GETRLIMIT(2)

NAME
     getrlimit,	setrlimit -- control maximum system resource consumption

LIBRARY
     Standard C	Library	(libc, -lc)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/types.h>
     #include <sys/time.h>
     #include <sys/resource.h>

     int
     getrlimit(int resource, struct rlimit *rlp);

     int
     setrlimit(int resource, const struct rlimit *rlp);

DESCRIPTION
     Limits on the consumption of system resources by the current process and
     each process it creates may be obtained with the getrlimit() system call,
     and set with the setrlimit() system call.

     The resource argument is one of the following:

     RLIMIT_AS	     The maximum amount	(in bytes) of virtual memory the
		     process is	allowed	to map.

     RLIMIT_CORE     The largest size (in bytes) core(5) file that may be cre-
		     ated.

     RLIMIT_CPU	     The maximum amount	of cpu time (in	seconds) to be used by
		     each process.

     RLIMIT_DATA     The maximum size (in bytes) of the	data segment for a
		     process; this defines how far a program may extend	its
		     break with	the sbrk(2) function.

     RLIMIT_FSIZE    The largest size (in bytes) file that may be created.

     RLIMIT_KQUEUES  The maximum number	of kqueues this	user id	is allowed to
		     create.

     RLIMIT_MEMLOCK  The maximum size (in bytes) which a process may lock into
		     memory using the mlock(2) system call.

     RLIMIT_NOFILE   The maximum number	of open	files for this process.

     RLIMIT_NPROC    The maximum number	of simultaneous	processes for this
		     user id.

     RLIMIT_NPTS     The maximum number	of pseudo-terminals this user id is
		     allowed to	create.

     RLIMIT_RSS	     When there	is memory pressure and swap is available, pri-
		     oritize eviction of a process' resident pages beyond this
		     amount (in	bytes).	 When memory is	not under pressure,
		     this rlimit is effectively	ignored.  Even when there is
		     memory pressure, the amount of available swap space and
		     some sysctl settings like vm.swap_enabled and
		     vm.swap_idle_enabled can affect what happens to processes
		     that have exceeded	this size.

		     Processes that exceed their set RLIMIT_RSS	are not	sig-
		     nalled or halted.	The limit is merely a hint to the VM
		     daemon to prefer to deactivate pages from processes that
		     have exceeded their set RLIMIT_RSS.

     RLIMIT_SBSIZE   The maximum size (in bytes) of socket buffer usage	for
		     this user.	 This limits the amount	of network memory, and
		     hence the amount of mbufs,	that this user may hold	at any
		     time.

     RLIMIT_STACK    The maximum size (in bytes) of the	stack segment for a
		     process; this defines how far a program's stack segment
		     may be extended.  Stack extension is performed automati-
		     cally by the system.

     RLIMIT_SWAP     The maximum size (in bytes) of the	swap space that	may be
		     reserved or used by all of	this user id's processes.
		     This limit	is enforced only if bit	1 of the vm.overcommit
		     sysctl is set.  Please see	tuning(7) for a	complete de-
		     scription of this sysctl.

     RLIMIT_VMEM     An	alias for RLIMIT_AS.

     A resource	limit is specified as a	soft limit and a hard limit.  When a
     soft limit	is exceeded, a process might or	might not receive a signal.
     For example, signals are generated	when the cpu time or file size is ex-
     ceeded, but not if	the address space or RSS limit is exceeded.  A program
     that exceeds the soft limit is allowed to continue	execution until	it
     reaches the hard limit, or	modifies its own resource limit.  Even reach-
     ing the hard limit	does not necessarily halt a process.  For example, if
     the RSS hard limit	is exceeded, nothing happens.

     The rlimit	structure is used to specify the hard and soft limits on a re-
     source.

	   struct rlimit {
		   rlim_t  rlim_cur;	   /* current (soft) limit */
		   rlim_t  rlim_max;	   /* maximum value for	rlim_cur */
	   };

     Only the super-user may raise the maximum limits.	Other users may	only
     alter rlim_cur within the range from 0 to rlim_max	or (irreversibly)
     lower rlim_max.

     An	"infinite" value for a limit is	defined	as RLIM_INFINITY.

     Because this information is stored	in the per-process information,	this
     system call must be executed directly by the shell	if it is to affect all
     future processes created by the shell; limit is thus a built-in command
     to	csh(1).

     The system	refuses	to extend the data or stack space when the limits
     would be exceeded in the normal way: a brk(2) function fails if the data
     space limit is reached.  When the stack limit is reached, the process re-
     ceives a segmentation fault (SIGSEGV); if this signal is not caught by a
     handler using the signal stack, this signal will kill the process.

     A file I/O	operation that would create a file larger that the process'
     soft limit	will cause the write to	fail and a signal SIGXFSZ to be	gener-
     ated; this	normally terminates the	process, but may be caught.  When the
     soft cpu time limit is exceeded, a	SIGXCPU	signal is sent to the offend-
     ing process.

     When most operations would	allocate more virtual memory than allowed by
     the soft limit of RLIMIT_AS, the operation	fails with ENOMEM and no sig-
     nal is raised.  A notable exception is stack extension, described above.
     If	stack extension	would allocate more virtual memory than	allowed	by the
     soft limit	of RLIMIT_AS, a	SIGSEGV	signal will be delivered.  The caller
     is	free to	raise the soft address space limit up to the hard limit	and
     retry the allocation.

RETURN VALUES
     Upon successful completion, the value 0 is	returned; otherwise the
     value -1 is returned and the global variable errno	is set to indicate the
     error.

ERRORS
     The getrlimit() and setrlimit() system calls will fail if:

     [EFAULT]		The address specified for rlp is invalid.

     [EPERM]		The limit specified to setrlimit() would have raised
			the maximum limit value, and the caller	is not the su-
			per-user.

SEE ALSO
     csh(1), quota(1), quotactl(2), sigaction(2), sigaltstack(2), sysctl(3),
     ulimit(3)

HISTORY
     The getrlimit() system call appeared in 4.2BSD.

FreeBSD	13.0		      September	30, 2016		  FreeBSD 13.0

NAME | LIBRARY | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUES | ERRORS | SEE ALSO | HISTORY

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