What we would like to do on a server running CENTOS 4.6 is to restrict max cpu time for most interactive users but ensure that processes for system users such as root & special userids that provide services are kept as unlimited.

The documentation for limits.conf is not very extensive but I think I am correct in assuming that resource limits specified in limits.conf only apply to processes that *login* to a system, rather than those kicked off at boot time as daemons?

There does not seem to be any obvious way of specifying an unlimited value for a resource unlike the ulimit command ? Does anyone know a way of specifying unlimited in limits.conf ?

Any suggestions