Debian Bug report logs - #631098
PHP Garbage Collection

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Martin Meredith <mez@debian.org>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: PHP Garbage Collection

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:34:32 +0100

Package: php5
Version: 5.3.6-12

I've had a problem where somehow, I've managed to end up with 
approximately 1,000,000 session files on my server.

Due to the large amount of files, the current crontab to clear them was 
unable to deal with it (xargs would fail to take in the HUGE list of files).

It seems that rather than using xargs (even with the limit), that using 
the -exec option of find might be a little bit more sane?


09,39 *     * * *     root   [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d 
/var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -type f -cmin 
+$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) -exec rm {} \;;

Is what I currently have in my cron script to work around this issue.

Message #10 received at 631098@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>

To: Martin Meredith <mez@debian.org>, "631098@bugs.debian.org" <631098@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Re: [php-maint] Bug#631098: PHP Garbage Collection

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:12:14 +0200

Hi,

5.3.6-12 has already updated crontab file without xargs.

Ondřej Surý

On 20.6.2011, at 10:34, Martin Meredith <mez@debian.org> wrote:

> Package: php5
> Version: 5.3.6-12
> 
> I've had a problem where somehow, I've managed to end up with approximately 1,000,000 session files on my server.
> 
> Due to the large amount of files, the current crontab to clear them was unable to deal with it (xargs would fail to take in the HUGE list of files).
> 
> It seems that rather than using xargs (even with the limit), that using the -exec option of find might be a little bit more sane?
> 
> 
> 09,39 *     * * *     root   [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) -exec rm {} \;;
> 
> Is what I currently have in my cron script to work around this issue.
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> pkg-php-maint mailing list
> pkg-php-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pkg-php-maint

Message #15 received at 631098-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Martin Meredith <mez@debian.org>

To: Ondřej Surý <ondrej@sury.org>, 631098-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: [php-maint] Bug#631098: PHP Garbage Collection

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:15:47 +0100

Ah, apologies, I just noticed that :D

Please ignore this bug :)


On 20/06/11 11:12, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> Hi,
>
> 5.3.6-12 has already updated crontab file without xargs.
>
> Ondřej Surý
>
> On 20.6.2011, at 10:34, Martin Meredith<mez@debian.org>  wrote:
>
>> Package: php5
>> Version: 5.3.6-12
>>
>> I've had a problem where somehow, I've managed to end up with approximately 1,000,000 session files on my server.
>>
>> Due to the large amount of files, the current crontab to clear them was unable to deal with it (xargs would fail to take in the HUGE list of files).
>>
>> It seems that rather than using xargs (even with the limit), that using the -exec option of find might be a little bit more sane?
>>
>>
>> 09,39 *     * * *     root   [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ]&&  [ -d /var/lib/php5 ]&&  find /var/lib/php5/ -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) -exec rm {} \;;
>>
>> Is what I currently have in my cron script to work around this issue.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> pkg-php-maint mailing list
>> pkg-php-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org
>> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pkg-php-maint

Message #20 received at 631098@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>

To: Martin Meredith <mez@debian.org>, 631098@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#631098: PHP Garbage Collection

Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 13:00:53 -0600

Martin Meredith wrote:
> I've had a problem where somehow, I've managed to end up with
> approximately 1,000,000 session files on my server.

That is definitely a very large number of files all in one place!

> Due to the large amount of files, the current crontab to clear them
> was unable to deal with it (xargs would fail to take in the HUGE
> list of files).
>
> It seems that rather than using xargs (even with the limit), that
> using the -exec option of find might be a little bit more sane?

I realize that the cron script has already changed in later releases
but just the same this shouldn't have been a problem with the previous
version that used xargs.  Using xargs is an older but quite acceptable
way to deal with a very large list of filenames.  I think that there
was some different problem related to this that wasn't diagnosed.

In other words, while using 'find . -exec command {} +' is more
efficient than 'find . -print0 | xargs -0 command' they are both
equivalent in functionality.  And using 'find . -conditions -delete'
is even better for safety and efficiency the 'xargs -0' version is
still functionally correct.  Today it is best to use -delete since it
is newly available in find.  But before the -delete and the "{} +"
forms were available then the 'find . -print0 | xargs -0 ...' form was
the standard of excellence and will handle directories with millions
of files in it.

In yet other words, I feel certain that the actual problem was
something else and not the use of 'find . ... -print0 | xargs -0 ...'
there.  For example perhaps memory was so limited that the Linux
kernel out-of-memory killer (OOM Killer) came into place?  Just as an
example and not necessarily saying that was the specific problem you
hit.

Bob

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