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I'm just wondering where these values are being set and what they default to? Mine is currently 18446744073692774399. I didn't set it anywhere that I can see.

$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax 
18446744073692774399

$ sysctl kernel.shmmax
kernel.shmmax = 18446744073692774399
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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The __init function ipc_ns_init sets the initial value of shmmax by calling shm_init_ns, which sets it to the value of the SHMMAX macro.

The definition of SHMMAX is in <uapi/linux/shm.h>:

#define SHMMAX (ULONG_MAX - (1UL << 24)) /* max shared seg size (bytes) */

On 64-bit machines, that definition equals the value you found, 18446744073692774399.

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2

On the fly you can just echo into /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax!

# echo 20446744073692774399 > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax

But most people edit /etc/sysctl.conf with a line similar to:

kernel.shmmax=your_new_value_here

See the sysctl(8) man page.

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2
  • That's not the question. Where are the defaults set? That is, if you don't write to shmmax yourself, what does it default to?
    – Evan Carroll
    Jun 14, 2017 at 2:09
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    On some Linux distros (RHEL 5&6 I believe is one) it is set in /etc/sysctl.conf. But I think the default is set in the kernel code to the theoretical limit (guessing that's 2^64 - 1?).
    – Deathgrip
    Jun 14, 2017 at 2:48

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