Hi all, I want to limit the resources like processor usage, or memory allocation for the users. So after some digging I found the /etc/security/limits.conf file. what I exactly want is to say user X is not allowed to use more than 50% of the cpu at a time, only in case the cpu would be idle, he is allowed to take more cpu cycles. I found the cpu parameter in the limits.conf file, which specifies the maximum time in minutes that a process can use the cpu. I have a slight problem to understand that. What when I have a long running process, taking days to compute, and I set the value to 10 minutes? will the process stop working after it used all the ten minutes of cpu time? also with using nice I cannot specifically say use only 50% of the cpu cycles in general, and only when idle otherwise use more. any idea how I can limit cpu resources as described above? kind regards Sebastian