Solaris Tunable Parameters Reference Manual

pidmax

Description

This parameter specifies value of largest possible process ID. Valid for Solaris 8 and later releases.

pidmax sets the value for the maxpid variable. Once maxpid is set, pidmax is ignored. maxpid is used elsewhere in the kernel to determine the maximum process ID and for constraint checking.

Attempts to set maxpid by adding an entry to the /etc/system file have no effect.

Data Type

Signed integer

Default

30,000

Range

266 to 999,999

Units

Processes

Dynamic?

No. Used only at boot time to set the value of pidmax.

Validation

Value is compared to that of reserved_procs and 999,999. If less than reserved_procs or greater than 999,999, the value is set to 999,999.

Implicit

max_nprocs range checking ensures that max_nprocs is always less than or equal to this value.

When to Change

Changing this parameter is one of the steps necessary to enable support for more than 30,000 processes on a system.

Commitment Level

Unstable