PHP / CGI script returns no results on Apache RLimitMEM & RLimitCPU

[Ray]

The code got line wrapped by the forum software, so some of the code appeared on a second line when it should have been on the same line. This may have been the cause of the error you are seeing.

I've just edited the post and fixed up the wrapping. Copy and paste it again, exactly as it is. It should work now.

[isd]

hello,
i have one question regarding the results, please. so if my last line ends like:
"integersallocated memory for 1995000 integersEnd test loop"
it means on this server configuration my zoom_wordmap.zdat which weights 5839292 is limited to nearly 30% ?

thank you very much for help in advance
ewa

[David]

If you see the "End test loop" message, Then no RAM or execution time limit was hit. Meaning that the server allowed the test script enough RAM to hold 2 million integers (which is about 8MB of RAM).

You could try changing the test script to try a larger value. e.g.

 
for ($i = 0; $i < 10000000; $i++)

This corresponds to about a >40MB RAM requirement.

You can't make any direct comparision to the size of the zoom_wordmap.zdat file as not all of the zoom_wordmap.zdat is held in RAM at any one time.

[isd]

ok, thank you very much David, that helps to understand much better, btw. in my case the memory limit can be excluded as reason of those occurrences?

thank you very much for help in advance
ewa

[Ray]

The PHP test can be used to show that the problem is evident, but it is not conclusive to prove that there is no limit put in place.

The reason is that it depends on how PHP is configured on the server. If the PHP scripting engine is setup as a CGI application which is forked by Apache, then the RLimit* operatives will apply and the PHP script can prove this. If they run within httpd however, the limits would not apply to the PHP engine.

[austenozzy]

Just a quick note to say thanks for this thread, it solved the problem for me!

I called rackspace (we're lucky enough to have a dedicated server) and they altered the memory available to PHP from 8MB to 32B and it solved it straight away.

Cheers,

Austen.

[David]

This thread was started 4 years ago. Even 32MB isn't much by today's standards (in 2009 with increasing volumes of data).

PHP as a language isn't very efficient in using RAM, and so 64MB or 128MB is more reasonable for PHP when typical servers have 2GB or 4GB available.

[David]

I am going to start making a list of known bad hosting companies. These are the ones who in my opinion that so severely restrict your usage of PHP and CGI that it makes their service close to useless. (You could even say fraudulent, as they don't announce all these limits in advance of taking your money).

Here is the list of hosts that are known to have this problem (they should be avoided in my opinion).

Yahoo hosting
Internet America (If you ask nicely to the right person, they may fix it for your server)
EarthLink (at mid 2009, they also use very slow hardware, so really avoid these guys.)
GoDaddy
1&1 hosting
Infinology
Namesco (names.co.uk)
ipage.com (limit was low, but they increase it upon request)
Hostgator (limit was low, but they increase it upon request, as of May 2012)

Update on Earthlink: Based on comments from a customer in Nov 2010 they are still running on older Sparc hardware and have low limits of allowable resource use. So they are still to be avoided IMHO.

Update on 1&1: Based on comments from a customer in Feb 2012 they still a low 30MB RAM limit. So they are still to be avoided.

[noface0711]

uninstalled/reinstalled and now it works again

[binia7]

hi
My hosting company is ipage. They will not tell me what the RLimitMem and RLimitCPU

[David]

They will not tell me what the RLimitMem and RLimitCPU

Probably got something to hide. If they told people the truth then people might be upset.
But in the end it is your choice. There are 100s of other hosting companies out there. Dump them and move to a serious hosting company.