Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5
Subject: Re: ulimit (was: getty/login for callback)
Message-ID: <1502@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 25 Apr 89 18:10:32 GMT
References: <836@twwells.uucp> <4428@ihuxz.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 32

>In the context of a corporation, a full file system is more that an
>inconvenience. It cost BIG bucks!!! Every time a system hangs because
>someone filled up a file system or 20-30 users can't work for several
>minutes while someone figures out the problem or a temporary space
>problem causes corruption of a product being prepaired for system 
>testing, the company loses MONEY!!!

Right.  And has been pointed out many times - although "ulimit"s
defenders seem not to see those messages - "ulimit" doesn't prevent
this.  It prevents *certain* situations from causing the file system to
fill up; most of the situations I've seen where a file system filled up
weren't caused by some program illegitimately running off at the mouth,
though, they were caused by a program *legitimately* writing a large
file, or, more often, by slow accretion of a bunch of *small* files.

The corporation also loses "MONEY!!!" when somebody's trying to process
a file that's larger than the ulimit, and the system won't let them....

>It is not difficult at all for the administrator to set a higher
>ulimit for users that have a legitimate need, ESPECIALLY is you have
>source to the login program.

Oh, good grief.  Are there really that many people out there aware that
many, many sites do *not* have source to the login program?  By this
logic, "/etc/inittab" isn't really necessary; after all, it would not be
difficult at all for the administrator to modify a compiled-in table....

>If you had ever been an administrator in a software development
>environment you would see the demonstrated need for the ulimit.

This statement is false.  I've administered systems in this environment, and
I see no such need.