I'm running qmail and am trying to set up linux to allow for hundreds of
outgoing connections at once (no, I'm not a spammer but the new admin of
some very large, dynamic mailing lists). I'm using Debian Linux 2.2.18pre21
and from what I read, it should be quite possible to adjust the maximum
processes per
user through 'limit' (or 'ulimit' depending on the shell) rather than
adjusting and recompiling the kernel. Well, I'm root, I do the adjustments
to limit ('limit maxproc 1000') but when I check the logs, qmail never gets
above 257 concurrency (256 is the default limit of maxproc). I do a 'limit'
before and after I run my script and get the following output each time:cputime unlimited filesize unlimited datasize unlimited stacksize 8192 kbytes coredumpsize 0 kbytes memoryuse unlimited descriptors 10000 memorylocked unlimited maxproc 1000 openfiles 10000 So the limit adjustment is sticking and yet it's being ignored. I thought at one point that maybe when I change the limit as root it doesn't apply to user qmailr (the user opening all the connections) but when I 'su qmailr' and check 'limit' I get the same updated numbers so that doesn't seem to be the problem. In the logfiles, the error I get at 257 concurrent connections is this: May 2 16:21:07 debian qmail: 988845667.036121 status: local 0/10 remote 257/500 May 2 16:21:07 debian qmail: 988845667.036150 delivery 44180: deferral:qmail-spawn_unable_to_fork._(4.3.0)/ "qmail-spawn unable to fork" pretty much tells me it's a linux resource problem. Okay, but what are 'limit' and 'ulimit' for if the adjustments I make to them are ignored? Thank ya much, in advance. Brett.
