Re: [CentOS] No ulimit for user

OK, I just found this

http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=13144

Which says that you cannot use "unlimited" for nofile

It says to do this

* soft nofile 63536 * hard nofile 63536

or "more realistically" to do this :

* soft nofile 8192 * hard nofile 63536

But I still cannot find what is the difference between the hard and soft limit

Also, once this file has been changed, does the system need to be rebooted for it to take affect?

Or does it automatically take affect for any new processes? So just restart any service I want to take advantage of it?

thanks, -Alan