[geeks] MAX_ARG issue

[Mike Meredith]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 06:34:30 -0400 (EDT), Kevin wrote:
> I'm getting the "bash: /bin/rm: Argument list too long" errors on one
> of my linux servers so i did a getconf ARG_MAX and i get back
> "131072".  Is there a way of increasing the MAX_ARG variable?  Are
> there any concerns with increasing this limit?

I rarely bother, but it's fairly easy to do ... just find ARG_MAX in
/usr/src/linux/include/linux/*, increase it, and recompile the kernel.
I'd only anticipate problems in a very small memory machine.

> I've gotten around the issue today using "find ./ -iname "spam*" -exec
> rm {} \;" 

I usually stick to that ... it keeps the -exec memory neurons well
lubricated.