Use MAXPTYS to manage the number of interactive shell sessions, where each interactive session requires one pseudo-TTY pair. Do not specify an arbitrarily high value for MAXPTYS.

Guideline: Because each user might have more than one session, you should allow four pseudo-TTY pairs for each user (MAXUIDS * 4). Specify a MAXPTYS value that is at least twice the MAXUIDS value.

Dynamically changing certain BPXPRMxx parameter values explains how to dynamically change the MAXPTYS value. For more information about pseudoterminal files, see Pseudoterminal files.

For an example of MAXPTYS settings in BPXPRMxx, see Monitoring use of system resources.