Maximum number of threads per process in Linux?

Question

What is the maximum number of threads that can be created by a process under Linux?

How (if possible) can this value be modified?

Answer 1

@dragosrsupercool

Linux doesn't use the virtual memory to calculate the maximum of thread, but the physical ram installed on the system

 max_threads = totalram_pages / (8 * 8192 / 4096);

http://kavassalis.com/2011/03/linux-and-the-maximum-number-of-processes-threads/

kernel/fork.c

/* The default maximum number of threads is set to a safe
 * value: the thread structures can take up at most half
 * of memory.
 */
max_threads = mempages / (8 * THREAD_SIZE / PAGE_SIZE);

So thread max is different between every system, because the ram installed can be from different sizes, I know Linux doesn't need to increase the virtual memory, because on 32 bit we got 3 GB for user space and 1 GB for the kernel, on 64 bit we got 128 TB of virtual memory, that happen on Solaris, if you want increase the virtual memory you need to add swap space.