PHP huge memory hog under iplanet

Anon

I am currently running PHP4.04pl1 with Iplanet web server 4.1SP3. I have already compiled with memory limit and also set the limit at 1Mbytes, but still the amount of memory used be my scripts are increasing without dropping back after the script is processed!

I have certain scripts which exceeded the 1mb limit and was stoppped by php since it has exhausted the resourcce allocated to them (= 1Mbyte). However, for all other scripts, they (< 1MByte) and were able to run. The problem is the amount of memory they used for processing are NEVER released back to the system.

I'd experienced this same problem with Netscape Web Server 3.63, but it was only very LITTLE significant then. Now under iplanet 4.1sp3 the amount used is HUGE! a few database and ldap queries make me jump from 15MB startup to 350MB mem usage!

Any help will be greatly appreciated

-- Patrick

raydobbs

Is this a Windows box? Macintosh? Unix-varient? The main thing I can think of without knowing the OS under which iPlanet runs is that PHP's preprocessor is most likely running as a CGI process instead of a module or ISAPI tie-in, and CGI processes have major problems hogging resources under various web servers, some way more than others.

PHP seems to run the best when paired with web server software that allows it's preprocessor part to run as part of the web server itself, and not a CGI program along side it. Use less memory, and faster execution, from what I've observed in my limited experience.

Anon

Its Actually running as an Iplanet Web-Server Module (NSAPI) under UNIX Solaris 2.7. And I still get these problems, I tried to run it as a cgi-module but to no avail, always getting coredumps.

I am having no problems running any PHP stuff on my web server right now, its just not releaseing the memory used for running the scripts and the ns-httpd program MEM usage is building up quite rapidly.

Any Ideas?

raydobbs

Have you tried the same type of set-up with perhaps another web server package? Another option is that perhaps Iplanet might not be doing a good job getting the memory back from the PHP module, but this is only a guess.

It might also be prudent to contact Iplanet's manufacturer to see if there is any issues on their records regarding memory usage problems and compatibility with the PHP module with their product.

It's also possible that the PHP module itself might be having memory issues under Solaris - which has had memory problems in past releases, if I remember correctly. If this might be the case, Sun might have a workaround available, or even a patch to combat the problem.

Hope this helps...

smarlowe

lastly, it's also possible that PHP or iplanet is just caching the files it's read recently and will give up the memory when the machine starts to run low. Better to have your memory used for buffers than to sit unused.

Anon

Is there a way / option to simply force php to release the memory? Is there a compile time flag? or a source code modification for which I can get PHP to not hog the system memory?

I have tried various way to limit / contain php already but to no avail. Can I set anything under Iplanet magnus.conf to overcome this? I'd even tried an unorthodox method of modifying the Zend engine to do this with instructions from:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=php-dev&m=97915639016934&w=2

Any help will be greatly appreciated !!

-- Patrick