[php-maint] Bug#501313: php5: lack of session.gc_probability breaks roundcube

[Gokdeniz Karadag]

Package: php5
Severity: normal


RoundCube webmail and probably some other web applications install their
own session handlers via php functions. They store sessions in their own
databases and handle garbage collection on their own.

In default etch installation, php5 ships with session.gc_probability
setting turned off. It clears "file based" sessions wtih the cronjob,
but aforementioned webapps get no chance to run their garbage
collectors. Is it possible to have both gc_probability set, and the
cronjob running in a default install ?

Also, I have experienced that setting gc_probability in
/etc/php5/apache2/php.ini had no effect ( observed with a low, divisor
and over a long time ) but setting it with the following function call
managed to run the custom garbage collection, If this is not intentionally 
disabled in the package compilation, that might be a bug.
ini_set('session.gc_probability', 1);



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
   APT prefers stable
   APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-6-xen-amd64
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)