Configure ulimit for HBase using the Command Line

Follow these command-line instructions to configure ulimit on systems that do not use Cloudera Manager.

Cloudera recommends increasing the maximum number of file handles to more than 10,000. Increasing the file handles for the user running the HBase process is an operating system configuration, not an HBase configuration. A common mistake is to increase the number of file handles for a particular user when HBase is running as a different user. HBase prints the ulimit it is using on the first line in the logs. Make sure that it is correct.

• To change the maximum number of open files for a user, use the ulimit -n command while logged in as that user.
• To set the maximum number of processes a user can start, use the ulimit -u command. You can also use the ulimit command to set many other limits. For more information, see the online documentation for your operating system, or the output of the man ulimit command.
• To make the changes persistent, add the command to the user's Bash initialization file (typically ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc ). Alternatively, you can configure the settings in the Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) configuration files if your operating system uses PAM and includes the pam_limits.so shared library.