Find Maximum Processes that Application Can Spawn on Linux using C++

In the Linux programming, understanding the limitations and capabilities of the system is crucial for writing robust and efficient applications. One important aspect to consider is the maximum number of processes that an application can spawn. This limitation is influenced by various factors such as system resources, kernel settings, and hardware specifications. This tutorial explains how to find the maximum processes that an application can spawn on Linux using C++.

The provided code continuously creates new processes until it encounters a limitation. It keeps track of the number of successful process creations and prints out this count at the end. Each time a process is created, it checks if it's the child process and terminates if so. If the process spawn fails, the loop ends.

#include <iostream>
#include <unistd.h>

int main()
{
    unsigned long count = 0;
    while (true) {
        pid_t pid = fork();
        if (pid == 0) {
            return 0; // Child process
        } else if (pid == -1) {
            break;
        }
        ++count;
    }

    std::cout << count << std::endl;

    return 0;
}

Output example:

115342