[HTCondor-users] why does htcondor change sysctl params, and why is this done outside of /etc/sysctl.{d, conf} ?

[SCHAER Frederic <frederic.schaer@xxxxxx>]

Hi,

 

This took me quite some time time to identify the culprit … :

 

[root@dev7241 ~]# sysctl kernel.pid_max ; sysctl kernel.pid_max=32768 ; service condor restart ; sysctl kernel.pid_max  ; sleep 10 ; sysctl kernel.pid_max

kernel.pid_max = 4194303

kernel.pid_max = 32768

DEBUG FSCHAER :

kernel.pid_max = 32768

DEBUG FSCHAER :

kernel.pid_max = 32768

Stopping Condor daemons:                                   [  OK  ]

Starting Condor daemons:                                   [  OK  ]

kernel.pid_max = 32768 #sleep after this one !

kernel.pid_max = 4194303

 

And unfortunately, there is no obvious (to me) option to change that, nothing in /etc/sysctl.conf or better /etc/sysctl.d, and no way to permanently override this setting.

Unfortunately, my monitoring is looking at all processes between 1 and pid_max… and this setting is causing useless load on servers – and it is killing some VMs which I use for dev.

 

If htcondor wants to modify such  system settings, could this please be done in a reversible/documented/standard way ?

What’s the rationale for setting this so high ?

 

Thanks && regards