Apache has many PHP session files

Question

# ls /var/lib/php5 | wc -l 7488 # ls -la -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 15:30 sess_vtuh671rlafdidfjmgjfu6065p4tfieg -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 12 02:30 sess_vu9pn476oiqbsd20q4s2brt60b9vg90d -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 15:07 sess_vuonfs2cqsdiq8ja51ornh6lp5j9mf93 -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 16:02 sess_vuutcad8as55il34db3uqhqrsltd4q6o -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 23:26 sess_vv2mrv5dnlnts6das4g5jlfldael4l0e -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 44 Nov 9 20:35 sess_vvc0cfjuvk3lqb5m97fv6gsmv6bjhsdk -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 10:33 sess_vvq82fhj9lg29gaejemlb2lrk25mqv7d -rw------- 1 wwwrun www 0 Nov 9 20:36 sess_vvtd4ka8rfmcroa34unl06916ubj8sb9 

Most of them are empty. There are not so many users on the server so I wonder where those files came from.

Is this a problem or how does apache handle those file? Do they get delete automaticly?

Could this be caused by a bad PHP file?

Answer 1

I assume this is from the deault session handler (you didn't say).

Yes, the files should get remove automatically, depending on the settings of session.gc_maxlifetime and session.gc_probability. If you've currently got the default settings, then increasing the latter will reduce the number of files.

But unless you have performance / capacity issues it's nothing to worry about.

That you have so many empty files implies that your server is spending a significant amount of time managing no data - if you have performance problems then smarter handling of empty sessions may help. i.e. re-engineer your code - but do read the manual on how session handling works first.