diff --git a/Developers_manual/doc_tex/Developers_manual/tools.tex b/Developers_manual/doc_tex/Developers_manual/tools.tex
index 37bcde29ae8..53306e0ba00 100644
--- a/Developers_manual/doc_tex/Developers_manual/tools.tex
+++ b/Developers_manual/doc_tex/Developers_manual/tools.tex
@@ -366,6 +366,14 @@ it should be {\tt ''-p -v -n''} (the default), on cygwin it should be {\tt ''-v
 {\tt nice} command, which is used to prevent the test-suite from keeping
 all CPU time for itself.  The default value is {\tt ''-19''}.
 
+{\tt ULIMIT\_OPTIONS} specifies the command line options to pass to the
+{\tt ulimit} command, which is used to prevent the test-suite from using
+various system ressources.  It can be used to help killing looping programs.
+For example, specifying {\tt ''-c 0 -t 10800 -v 2000000''} will prevent
+the creation of dumped core files, will stop processes after 3 hours,
+and will kill them if they reach 2GB of memory.
+The default value is empty (no limit).
+
 \index{.autocgalrc configuration file@{\tt .autocgalrc} configuration file|)}
 \index{autotest_cgal script@{\tt autotest\_cgal} script|)}
 
diff --git a/Scripts/developer_scripts/autotest_cgal b/Scripts/developer_scripts/autotest_cgal
index 2690daf32e2..6f21c69271b 100755
--- a/Scripts/developer_scripts/autotest_cgal
+++ b/Scripts/developer_scripts/autotest_cgal
@@ -244,6 +244,7 @@ export CGAL_TESTER CGAL_TESTER_NAME CGAL_TESTER_ADDRESS;
 rm -rf ${LOCAL_TEST_DIR};
 cp -r ${CGAL_TEST_DIR} ${LOCAL_TEST_DIR};
 cd ${LOCAL_TEST_DIR};
+[ -n "${ULIMIT_OPTIONS}" ] && ulimit ${ULIMIT_OPTIONS};
 nice ${NICE_OPTIONS} make ${MAKE_OPTS};
 echo 'COLLECTING RESULTS';
 ./collect_cgal_testresults;