Clearify documentation for Docker's ulimit option

[gasparch]

Problem description

Documentation at the url does not provide any clarity what values are correct ones for ulimits option and does not give hint where to look them up.

The values are sent to the appropriate syscall as they are set.

Provided no additional information what and where to look up.

Problem location

I saw a problem on the following URL: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/run/#set-ulimits-in-container-ulimit

Suggestions for a fix

Docker supports ulimits only on Linux now, so linking to page like this could have helped understanding which options are supported. Listing all possible options could be also useful. And if it is platform specific - list of functions (setflimit for Linux, someOtherFunction for Windows) at least would provided direction what to search further. Right now it requires digging up to the sources to understand what needs to be looked up.

[joaofnfernandes]

Yup, it seems that we don't have any docs around this. You can find the supported ulimit types here.

[mdlinville]

@thaJeztah Is there any way we can actually see all of the possible options for --ulimit? @shin- same question for Docker Compose.

[shin-]

There's no checks on ulimit values at the Compose level - we defer it to the engine since, as pointed out in OP, the list of valid options varies with the platform the containers ultimately run on.

[mdlinville]

This seems to have been addressed by several closed issues.

[yves-chevallier]

I am not sure whether this issue should be closed. It is hard to match :

	"core":       rlimitCore,
	"cpu":        rlimitCPU,
	"data":       rlimitData,
	"fsize":      rlimitFsize,
	"locks":      rlimitLocks,
	"memlock":    rlimitMemlock,
	"msgqueue":   rlimitMsgqueue,
	"nice":       rlimitNice,
	"nofile":     rlimitNofile,
	"nproc":      rlimitNproc,
	"rss":        rlimitRss,
	"rtprio":     rlimitRtprio,
	"rttime":     rlimitRttime,
	"sigpending": rlimitSigpending,
	"stack":      rlimitStack,

With

core file size (blocks)         (-c) 0
data seg size (kb)              (-d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size (blocks)              (-f) unlimited
pending signals                 (-i) 205530
max locked memory (kb)          (-l) 82000
max memory size (kb)            (-m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 1048576
POSIX message queues (bytes)    (-q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size (kb)                 (-s) 8192
cpu time (seconds)              (-t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) unlimited
virtual memory (kb)             (-v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited

Any hint?

[yves-chevallier]

Here my guesses...

"locks": -x
"stack": -s
"sigpending": -i
"rttime": -r
"rtprio": -e
"nproc": -u
"nofile": -n
"msgqueue": -q
"core": -c
"data": -d
"cpu": -t
"fsize": -f
"memlock": -m

"nice": ?
"rss": ?

-l ?
-v ?

[docker-robott]

Closed issues are locked after 30 days of inactivity.
This helps our team focus on active issues.

If you have found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue.

/lifecycle locked