ulimit error while changing max files to unlimited: PAM / sshd options?

[Rahul Nabar]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Carl T. Miller <carl at carltm.com> wrote:
> Yes, ulimit only lets you set a number up to the hard
> limit that is set for your shell.  Both hard and soft
> limits are set to 1024 by default unless the limits.conf
> file has been configured _before_ the shell is started.

I rebooted with the changed limits.conf. Doesn't that count as
"before" the shell is started?

> I know this works with numbers, since I set hard and
> soft limits to 10240 for select users.  Try using a
> number less than the total for the system instead of
> unlimited.

You are right! It does seem to work with arbitrarily large numbers
lower than the kernel limit. But not unlimited. Strange! Is that a
bug? I thought "unlimited" was supposed to be a convenient synonym for
the kernel imposed limit.

-- 
Rahul