Adjustments for Large Number of Concurrent Processes on macOS
Make the following adjustments if you are running a system that requires a large number of processes or telnet logins:
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Remote connections — The number of pty (pseudo terminal) connections is limited to 128 system-wide. If your applications count on telnet or other pty-using connections for users to access, keep this in mind.
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Number of processes — If the pty limit is not a problem, but you need to run a larger number of processes, there are limits to that as well.
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System-wide process limits — The kern.maxproc, kern.maxprocperuid parameters are set to 532 and 100 by default. You can change them using the following commands:
administrator$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxproc=2500 kern.maxproc: 2065 -> 2500 administrator$ sudo sysctl -w kern.maxprocperuid=2500 kern.maxprocperuid: 2000 -> 2500 administrator$ sysctl -a | grep maxproc kern.maxproc = 2500 kern.maxprocperuid = 2500
Note, however, that 2500 is the absolute unchangeable upper limit.
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