[techtalk] ulimits

[Phil Savoie]

Hi All,

I'm running RedHat 6.2 in a development environment and I need to
allow developers to dump core files.  The problem is the default
ulimit settings are different for a user when logged in directly to
the console versus logged in remotely:

# console login
% ulimit -H -c
unlimited
% ulimit -S -c
1000000

# remote login
% ulimit -H -c
0
% ulimit -S -c
0

The 1000000 soft limit is being set in /etc/profile, but it fails for
remote logins with the message

bash: ulimit: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted

because the hard limit is set to 0 for a remote login, so users cannot
increase it.  Out of desparation, I tried setting explicit limits in
/etc/security/limits.conf, but that didn't have an effect on remote
logins.

Does anyone know how/why/where this is set, or how I can change this
behavior?

BTW, I am aware that ssh works correctly with ulimit but it is rlogin that I 
am concerned with.

Thanks in advance,

Phil