This is a short-and-simple cookbook to provide a user_ulimit resource for overriding various ulimit settings. It places configured templates into /etc/security/limits.d/, named for the user the ulimit applies to.

It also provides a helper recipe (default.rb) for allowing ulimit overrides with the 'su' command on Ubuntu, which is disabled by default for some reason.

Add to your repo, then depend upon this cookbook from wherever you need to override ulimits.

• node['ulimit']['pam_su_template_cookbook'] - Defaults to nil (current cookbook). Determines what cookbook the su pam.d template is taken from
• node['ulimit']['users'] - Defaults to empty Hash. List of users with their limits

Consume the user_ulimit resource like so:

user_ulimit "tomcat" do
  filehandle_limit 8192 # optional
  filehandle_soft_limit 8192 # optional; not used if filehandle_limit is set)
  filehandle_hard_limit 8192 # optional; not used if filehandle_limit is set)
  process_limit 61504 # optional
  memory_limit 1024 # optional
  core_limit 2048 # optional
end

You can also define limits using attributes on roles or nodes:

"default_attributes": {
   "ulimit": {
      "users": {
         "tomcat": {
            "filehandle_limit": 8193,
               "process_limit": 61504
             },
            "hbase": {
               "filehandle_limit": 32768
             }
       }
    }
 }

ulimit_domain 'my_user' do
  rule do
    item :nofile
    type :hard
    value 10000
  end
  rule do
    item :nofile
    type :soft
    value 5000
  end
end