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From: guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Xenix 1 Meg file limit
Message-ID: <2273@sun.uucp>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 01:15:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: sun.2273
Posted: Thu Jun  6 01:15:27 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Jun-85 04:02:30 EDT
References: <173@medstar.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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Xref: watmath net.unix-wizards:13459 net.micro.pc:4187

>     A major limitation of Xenix on the PC/AT is the 1 Megabyte file size
> limit.

"ulimit" is a hack, and a poor one at that.  The code is lousy - first,
because it's done in the kernel, rather than by "init" with the limit
specified in a file, so it's not an easily-tunable parameter, and second,
because the value is NOT a define constant, but a magic number!  It does NOT
provide a way to restrict usage of the disk, because it merely restricts the
size of an individual file, not the total disk block consumption of a user or
process.  It does, however, make life difficult for programs that need a
file of that size.

The correct way to restrict disk usage is with disk quotas.  You can get
UNIX systems with disk quotas; however, you can't get them from AT&T....

Furthermore, a ulimit other than 0x7fffffff for a single-user workstation is
stupid.

>     This is a major limitation for utilizing large databases.  IBM says
> that this should be fixed soon.

Let's hope AT&T realizes the same thing and fixes it in System V Release n,
for some value of n.  Until that time, let's hope all the resellers of S5
realize the same thing and fix it.

	Guy Harris