ulimit effects on mysql user?

[Luke H. Crouch]

if I have changed my /etc/security/limits.conf file to include these lines:
 
mysql    soft      nofile        4096
mysql    hard     nofile        63536
 
and then done:
 
[root@rh-mysql-1 root]# su mysql
[mysql@rh-mysql-1 root]$ ulimit -n 8192
[mysql@rh-mysql-1 root]$ ulimit -n
8192

does this new 8192 open file limit apply to the already-running mysqld process, which was
started like so:
 
[root@rh-mysql-1 root]# /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
 
? or will I need to restart the mysql server and/or machine to have the new open files
limit take effect for the mysql server? am I correct that the open files limit placed on
the mysql user will be the limit faced by the mysqld process, since the process is
started with the --user=mysql option?
 
thanks,
-L