altering "maxdsiz" or "datasize" limit ?

[Mark Stosberg]

Hello,

We've been satisfied FreeBSD users for several years at our hosting
company.

Recently we ran into into a problem where a long running cron script was
dying early because it is hitting FreeBSD's data segment size limit of
512 Megs, even though the machine has plenty more memory. I would like
to raise this limit, and am currently using FreeBSD 6.2.

When I researched this, I first found references to tuning "maxdsiz" in
loader.conf, then some pointed out what I found myself.... this variable
is no longer documented and perhaps no longer present in FreeBSD 6.2.

I also found that it appears you can report on it and change it with the
"limits" command:

 limits -d 1g

That appears to work in the sense that the command is allowed and no
error is returned, but then if I run a follow up "limits" report again,
I see that no change is reported to have happened.

So, how I can actually increase this limit? (Both immediately and
persisting through a reboot).

Thanks!

    Mark