[imp] IMP Hangs

[Alain Fauconnet]

On Tue, Jan 30, 2001 at 05:20:04PM -0500, Chuck Hagenbuch wrote:
> Quoting Momchil Shumackov <mshumackov@usa.net>:
> 
> > My server is under heavy load but both IMP 2.0 and 2.2 constantly crash. I get
> > too many IMAP daemons and too many apache daemons they fill the memory and...
> > BOOM! 
> 
> Okay: IMP does not crash. IMP is a php script. PHP might segfault, causing 
> apache to crash, and your IMAP daemon might crash. But those are different 
> things.
> 
> > I have been tracking the problem - if I stop IMAP or Apache (when the server
> > memory becomes full) everything becomes normal in some few seconds. 
> 
> Either one?
> 
> > I have seen something similar in the Horde FAQ - it says IMP will crash if the
> > $default->folders is not set correctly. Mine is 
> > $default->folders = 'INBOX.';
> > 
> > Does anyone have an idea if that's correct?
> 
> It will work fine, though it will mean your users don't see any shared folders.
> 
> Maybe you just don't have enough memory?
> 
> -chuck

On some platforms / versions  of  PHP /  versions  of  Apache /  lunar
phases,  the  httpd processes become (and remain) *very* big when user
attach  big  files or download big attachments. I have especially seen
this on FreeBSD 4.1 / Apache 1.3.12 /  PHP  3.0.16.  (IMP  2.2.4-cvs).

The  work-around  I  have  applied  so  far (until I have some time to
upgrade all versions and see if that fixes anything) was  to  use  the
MaxRequestsPerChild parameter in Apache configuration, so  that  httpd
processes  die  and  new  ones  get  started after a certain number of
requests handled.

Hope this can help,
Cheers,
_Alain_

-- 
Alain FAUCONNET
Sr. System Administrator
CS Communications Co. Ltd. - Thailand