I came across an issue on one of our Ubuntu 10.04 servers where there was over 1GB of session files, and none getting deleted. I didn't know that Ubuntu ignores the normal PHP method for deletion in favour of using cron.
I won't re-write the whole shebang here, but here is the article that shed some light on the situation for me:
- http://www.laurencegellert.com/2012/08/php-sessions-not-being-deleted-on-ubuntu-server/
Here's what I did:
1. Make a backup:
cp /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime.bak
2. Edit maxlifetime file
nano /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime
3. I deleted everything and pasted this:
#!/bin/sh -e
max=1440
echo$(($max/60))
exit 0