List the limits values for a specific user

[root@lnx01]/etc/security # su - ispprod3 -c "ulimit -a"
core file size          (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size           (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority             (-e) 0
file size               (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals                 (-i) 385914
max locked memory       (kbytes, -l) 64
max memory size         (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files                      (-n) 8096
pipe size            (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues     (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority              (-r) 0
stack size              (kbytes, -s) 8192
cpu time               (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes              (-u) 4096
virtual memory          (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks                      (-x) unlimited

To list only hard limits : ulimit -Ha
To list only soft limits : ulimit -Sa

To modify a value for a specific user add the lines at the end

[root@lnx01]/etc/security # cat /etc/security/limits.conf
#<domain>        <type>  <item>  <value>
#
#Where:
#<domain> can be:
#        - a user name
#        - a group name, with @group syntax
#        - the wildcard *, for default entry
#        - the wildcard %, can be also used with %group syntax,
#                 for maxlogin limit
#
#<type> can have the two values:
#        - "soft" for enforcing the soft limits
#        - "hard" for enforcing hard limits
#
#<item> can be one of the following:
#        - core - limits the core file size (KB)
#        - data - max data size (KB)
#        - fsize - maximum filesize (KB)
#        - memlock - max locked-in-memory address space (KB)
#        - nofile - max number of open file descriptors
#        - rss - max resident set size (KB)
#        - stack - max stack size (KB)
#        - cpu - max CPU time (MIN)
#        - nproc - max number of processes
#        - as - address space limit (KB)
#        - maxlogins - max number of logins for this user
#        - maxsyslogins - max number of logins on the system
#        - priority - the priority to run user process with
#        - locks - max number of file locks the user can hold
#        - sigpending - max number of pending signals
#        - msgqueue - max memory used by POSIX message queues (bytes)
#        - nice - max nice priority allowed to raise to values: [-20, 19]
#        - rtprio - max realtime priority
#
#<domain>      <type>  <item>         <value>
#

#*               soft    core            0
#*               hard    rss             10000
#@student        hard    nproc           20
#@faculty        soft    nproc           20
#@faculty        hard    nproc           50
#ftp             hard    nproc           0
#@student        -       maxlogins       4

# End of file
*       hard    core    0
ispprod3        soft    nofile          16192
ispprod3        hard    nofile          65536

Now recheck the soft limit for number of open files

[root@lnx01]/etc/security # su - ispprod3 -c "ulimit -Sn"
16192

Check which was the limit when a process was started by user

[root@lnx01 ~]# ps -ef | grep dsmserv
ispprod3  25949      1 52 Aug10 ?        1-10:05:39 /opt/tivoli/tsm/server/bin/dsmserv -i /ispprod3 -q
[root@lnx01 ~]# cat /proc/25949/limits
Limit                     Soft Limit           Hard Limit           Units
Max cpu time              unlimited            unlimited            seconds
Max file size             unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max data size             unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max stack size            8388608              unlimited            bytes
Max core file size        0                    0                    bytes
Max resident set          unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max processes             385914               385914               processes
Max open files            4096                 4096                 files
Max locked memory         65536                65536                bytes
Max address space         unlimited            unlimited            bytes
Max file locks            unlimited            unlimited            locks
Max pending signals       385914               385914               signals
Max msgqueue size         819200               819200               bytes
Max nice priority         0                    0
Max realtime priority     0                    0
Max realtime timeout      unlimited            unlimited            us