UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Is there any limit in UNIX that only a MAXIMUM no of processes can run at a time? If so, it exceeds then what would be the error we would receive?

The limit will be specific to operating system and capacity at least. Process id's (in my memory) have increased from 5 digits to 7 (AIX6.1, any other offers?)

The available memory and paging space impacts it too as each process consumes some. There are also definitions you can alterm but the way to do so depends on your operating system. There will be a per-user limit and possibly a system-wide limit that are meant to be carefully set in combination high enough to let your processing work, but low enough to protect you from runaway process spawning.


You may see messages about failing to fork a new process and that suggests you are hitting the limit. Again, the message depends on the operating system you have.


Can you enlighten us (specific version too) and someone may have an answer for you.




Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK

Without this, we can't help much more.



Robin

There's likely a per-user limit as well, to prevent them from putting the system into swapdeath accidentally.

There will be a maximum number of processes total and a maximum number of processes per individual general user.

As a general user you would not see any error from that process because that process would not run.
Your o/s kernel should log the error in the system error log.


I can be quite an experience. Like you type "ls" and nothing happens.