PHP4 and shared memory

["Adrian Caneva" <acaneva@nexttech.com.ar>]

Hi,
I've just installed PHP4 from woody (php4 4:4.1.1-1) under Debian 2.2r4. I
found some problems and workarounds related to shared memory use. Some
doubts on them :

* Problem1: apache daemon (1.3.22-5) refuses to start raising error
  "PHP Fatal error:  Unable to start session mm module in Unknown on line
0".

  Workaround: on startup I added the line
  #echo "33554432" > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax

  I obtained this workaround from README.Debian included with the source
package.
  I would like to know how to tune this value and if there is cleaner way to
set it.

* Problem2: php4 sessions don't work in general (neither handling them in
4.0.x nor 4.1.x way).
  Particulary for squirrelmail which requires "register_globals = On" at
php.ini.
  One can see the sessions being created at /tmp, PHPSESSID cookie, etc.
  But registering a variable sometimes override others and they cannot be
accesed in the scripts anyway.

  Workaround: I replaced at php.ini parameter "session.save_handler" default
value "files" with "mm"

  Is file handler not supported anymore for php4.1.1 sessions or is it a
particular problem of my platform ? Is this configuration trustable ?

Thanks very much in advance,
Adrian



==========================
  Adrian Caneva
  NEXT TECHNOLOGY SRL
  La Rioja 26
  (T4000ISB) Tucuman
  Tel/Fax +54 381 4219105
  acaneva@nexttech.com.ar
  www.nexttech.com.ar
==========================