how to set the shmmax parameter on mac os x

Question

how should I set the shm* values in Mac Os X 10.5.6 Leopard in a persistent manner?

Answer 1

put this

kern.sysv.shmmax=524288000
kern.sysv.shmmin=1
kern.sysv.shmmni=64
kern.sysv.shmseg=16
kern.sysv.semmns=130
kern.sysv.shmall=131072000
kern.sysv.maxproc=2048
kern.maxprocperuid=512

on this file /etc/sysctl.conf

and then reboot.

to verify run this command

 sysctl kern.sysv.shmmax 

and it should give 524288000

Answer 2

(from: http://willbryant.net/software/mac_os_x/postgres_initdb_fatal_shared_memory_error_on_leopard)

One wat to fix it is to run:

sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=65536
sudo sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=16777216

and then run the initdb command. To persist the changes you need to edit/create the file /etc/sysctl.conf with this:

kern.sysv.shmall=65536
kern.sysv.shmmax=16777216

Answer 3

What do you get when you run 'sysctl -p' ? does it load your settings from /etc/sysctl.conf? What file is listed as default when you do 'sysctl --help' ?