How to change stack depth limits in /etc/security/limits.d/ and have the changes apply to services at boot

Solution 1:

Until someone can give me a clean solution, this is what I've come up with, and it sucks. I won't accept it as THE answer to my question, but here it is (gags). At least it works.

Background

Seems that changes to /etc/security/limits.* never impact services, but rather stuff being executed from the shell. So, that kind of makes my changes in /etc/security/limits.* quite meaningless. (insert cussing here). I've now deleted my /etc/security/limits.d/myapplication.conf.

Changing Stack Size limits for postgres

This is a garbage solution. I hate it.

I've edited my "/usr/share/postgresql-common/init.d-functions", specifically the start() function, to appear as:

...
# start all clusters of version $1
# output according to Debian Policy for init scripts
start() {
    ulimit -s 131072    #JTS: To avoid Issue #XYZ 

    # create socket directory
    if [ -d /var/run/postgresql ]; then
        chmod 2775 /var/run/postgresql
    else
    ...

Obviously I've added the ulimit line. It's disgusting to me to modify this file because I expect it to be perpetually changed by updates. At least I have an Ansible rule to enforce it exists.

My Ansible solution

Here's the Ansible task I've created to enforce this config change for me:

- blockinfile:
    dest: /usr/share/postgresql-common/init.d-functions
    block: |
          ulimit -s 131072
    backup: yes
    insertafter: '^start\(\) \{'
    state: present

This Ansible task results in the function looking like this:

...
# start all clusters of version $1
# output according to Debian Policy for init scripts
start() {
# BEGIN ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
ulimit -s 131072
# END ANSIBLE MANAGED BLOCK
    # create socket directory
    if [ -d /var/run/postgresql ]; then
       ...

Of Note: Upstart Services Ignore /etc/security/limits

Seems that /etc/security/limits.* is ignorred by Upstart, which Ubuntu 14.04 uses. My application service actually uses upstart and one can insert a line for upstart that looks like:

limit stack <softlimit> <hardlimit>

Ubuntu switched to systemd after 14.04, so this upstart tid-bit will fade in to irrelevance.

This isn't relevant to my question because on 14.04, postgresql is not managed by upstart.