core dump files clogging my vB server

[mhdhallak]

Hi

I've been experiencing technical difficulties with my installation of vB which hasn't gone live yet.

The problem started yesterday when I was posting a quick reply to a thread, it took long so I clicked 'Go Advanced'. That too took long so I just refreshed the page. It took long and I ended up with a fatal error "allowed memory exhausted" (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=78563).

It may be interesting to know that I have about 9 modifications installed in my forum. If I disable the entire mod system, the forum works. If I enable it, I get the above exception.

After researching the problem, I found out that I must increase the PHP maximum_memory limit from 8MB to 16MB. I contacted the host company and instead if increasing this setting globally, they gave a php.ini file to place in the root vB directory and any directory that had php files. This modified php.ini file has a memory limit set to 16MB. I copied this file to any folder in vB that had php files and it worked. I now have all plugins enabled and they forum works flawlessly.

Except for one glitch: After each request or page load, about 3-5 files are created on the server each with size of ~ 8MB. They are called core.#### (# = random number). I have contacted the host company about this and at first they said they solved by updating some Zend Optimizer setting but I'm still getting those files. I had to bring the forum down to prevent people from accessing the site and flooding my sever space with core dump files.

I'm still waiting to hear from my host company about a difinitive solution. However, I though I get your experiences if anybody has ever had this problem before.

Any ideas?

Thanks

AL

[Ntfu2]

1. From the terminal, type cd /etc. You should be in the etc directory.
2. Type sudo pico csh.cshrc and enter your password when prompted. This will open csh.cshrc, and allow you to edit the file.
3. Scroll to the end of the file and add the following line: limit coredumpsize 0 That's the line you would add to your .cshrc if you're just changing the settings for one user.
4. Hit Control-X, press Y, then Enter.
5. Restart your computer, or type limit coredumpsize 0 in the Terminal to have it take affect immediately.

If you ever decide that you need coredumps turned on temporarily, you can type unlimit coredumpsize in the Terminal. This will turn coredumps on for the duration of the shell. Or delete the line you just added in the .cshrc file completely.