File descriptors

["Derek T. Yarnell" <derek cs umd edu>]

Has anyone else run into this problem?

[root icdl ~]# cat /etc/security/limits.conf | grep -v ^#
*               soft nofile 2048
*               hard nofile 65535

----------------------------------------------------------

derek scorponok:~> ssh staff icdl
staff icdl's password: 
Permission denied, please try again.
staff icdl's password: 
[staff icdl ~]$ 
[staff icdl ~]$ whoami
staff
[staff icdl ~]$ limit
cputime         unlimited
filesize        unlimited
datasize        unlimited
stacksize       10240 kbytes
coredumpsize    unlimited
memoryuse       unlimited
vmemoryuse      unlimited
descriptors     1024 
memorylocked    4 kbytes
maxproc         7168 
[staff icdl ~]$ limit descriptors 2048
limit: descriptors: Can't set limit
[staff icdl ~]$ su staff
Password: 
[staff icdl ~]$ whoami
staff
[staff icdl ~]$ limit
cputime         unlimited
filesize        unlimited
datasize        unlimited
stacksize       10240 kbytes
coredumpsize    unlimited
memoryuse       unlimited
vmemoryuse      unlimited
descriptors     2048 
memorylocked    4 kbytes
maxproc         7168 
[staff icdl ~]$ limit descriptors 4096
[staff icdl ~]$ limit
cputime         unlimited
filesize        unlimited
datasize        unlimited
stacksize       10240 kbytes
coredumpsize    unlimited
memoryuse       unlimited
vmemoryuse      unlimited
descriptors     4096 
memorylocked    4 kbytes
maxproc         7168 


So sshd is not adhereing to /etc/security/limits.conf, is this normal?
Why would it not? Thanks.

-- 
---
Derek T. Yarnell
University of Maryland
Computer Science Department Unix Staff
derek cs umd edu