ulimit stack size and python threads

[Greg Lindahl]

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.

-- greg