参考: 

$sudo gedit /etc/security/limits.conf    #open the file in gedit
user  soft  nofile 9000
user  hard  nofile 65000

$ sudo gedit /etc/pam.d/common-session #open the file in gedit

Then add the line:
session required pam_limits.so

Now after rebooting you can see in the terminal with ulimit -a the change.

http://posidev.com/blog/2009/06/04/set-ulimit-parameters-on-...