PHP configuration

[si-the-pie]

Difficult directives

Despite being listed as PHP_INI_ALL the following directives are not effectively assigned to values applied from the Apache configuration:

Directive	Changeable
session.gc_maxlifetime	PHP_INI_ALL
session.cookie_lifetime	PHP_INI_ALL
zend.assertions	PHP_INI_ALL with restrictions

The assigned values are respected when included in the php.ini system, as has been tried for example in 9998f11.

The zend.assertions directive controls how PHP is compiled which might be why it has to be set in the php.ini system, and the qualification with restrictions is a hint to that.

phpinfo()

Despite looking at this many times over the last decade I have never gotten to the bottom of why the other two settings cannot be set reliably from the Apache configuration. E.g. when set in the either a virtualhost configuration or the one of the higher level conf-enabled files to 86400, phpinfo() lists them as:

Directive	Local value	Master value
session.cookie_lifetime	86400	1440
session.gc_maxlifetime	86400	1440

(1440 = 24 minutes, 86400 = 24 hours)

but the setting in force appears to be the master value as about 24 minutes later the site requests a login. (This wait also makes it a pain to test / debug.)

I think it might be something to do with the server wide nature of these settings - e.g. the garbage collection lifetime presumably applies to the whole of php as perhaps hinted at by the note attached to this documentation for the session.gc_maxlifetime directive.

Consequence

Until this matter can be resolved then changing these values from their defaults requires edits in the php.ini system files.

[mvl22]

Have these been tried in the script itself, rather than Apache? (Both ought to work of course.)

[si-the-pie]

Have these been tried in the script itself, rather than Apache?

Yes, just now, (if I get what you mean by 'script`), but with the same negative outcome.

I tried removing the php.ini configuration and adding the following to meta.php:

		ini_set ('session.gc_maxlifetime', 2000);
		ini_set ('session.cookie_lifetime', 1600);
		ini_set ('zend.assertions', 0);		

and phpinfo() via the workshop page shows:

Directive	Local value	Master value
session.cookie_lifetime	1600	0
session.gc_maxlifetime	2000	1440

and via another route: zend.assertions has value -1.

I also tried with those values as strings rather than int.

So, this is the same result as has been previously tried via the apache configuation.

[mvl22]

That correctly shows that the local value, i.e. the one actually used by the application, is in use. I can't see what the problem is.

(The master value is just for information, namely saying what the system value is, but it's rarely interesting.)

[si-the-pie]

That correctly shows that the local value

Yes theoretically as I understand it, but in practice for these directives this local value is being ignored.