ulimit stack size and python threads

[MRAB]

Greg Lindahl wrote:
> I figure this is a FAQ, but I can't find it in any FAQs.
> 
> I want to limit the stacksize on my server.
> 
> If I set it to 8 megs, or unlimited, python is happy.
> 
> If I set it to 4 gigabytes, things like yum (which is a python
> program) crash creating a thread. This is on an x86_64 linux kernel,
> RHEL5, etc etc.
> 
> Why is Python overloading the meaning of the ulimit -s like this?
> There are plenty of real non-python programs with huge stack usage,
> and I'd like my system default stack limit to be less than unlimited
> but much larger than Python will allow.
> 
I'm only guessing, but could it be a 32-bit limit somewhere? Have you 
tried, say, 1GB, which would be within a 32-bit limit?