Limit the memory and cpu available for a user in Linux

Question

I am a little concerned with the amount of resources that I can use in a shared machine. Is there any way to test if the administrator has a limit in the amount of resources that I can use? And if does, to make a more complete question, how can I set up such limit?

Thank you.

Answer 1

For process related limits, you can have a look in /etc/security/limits.conf (read the comments in the file, use google or use man limits.conf for more information). And as jpalecek points out, you may use ulimit -a to see (and possibly modify) all such limits currently in effect.

You can use the command quota to see if a disk quota is in effect.

Answer 2

You can try running

ulimit -a

to see what resource limits are in effect. Also, if you are allowed to change such limits, you can change them by the ulimit command, eg.

ulimit -c unlimited

lifts any limit for a size of a core file a process can make.