Ulimit "cannot modify limit" error when starting Apache

Question

This isn't exactly an OSX Server problem, but I am trying to start Apache and subsequently Tomcat on my MacBook Pro so I can locally test a website before I deploy it to our test server. (The MacBook is a new machine to which I recently migrated my setup from my old PowerBook. The PowerBook is running 10.4.11, FWIW, and all worked well there.)
When I do this from the command line:
sudo /Library/Apache2/bin/apachectl start
I get:
/Library/Apache2/bin/apachectl: line 70: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Invalid argument
And Apache is not started. This runs fine on my old machine. The culprit line from apachectl is:
ULIMITMAXFILES="ulimit -S -n `ulimit -H -n`"
Just running the'ulimit -H -n' yields 'unlimited'.
What's the problem here, and how do I fix it? I haven't found the answer by Googling.

Answer 1

Back up all data.
Select
Shell ▹ New Command
from the Terminal menu bar. Copy and paste the following line into the text box that opens:
mkdir disabled_shell_files; mv .profile .bash* $_
Your old shell initialization and history files will be saved in a directory with the indicated name at the top level of your home directory. Test.