Core files?

[chinaren]

Hi all.  


A few days ago my host stopped my SMF directory because they said it was hammering the (shared) server CPU.  This is the first time this has happened (to my knowledge) in three years. 


I managed to get them to let me in and had a look around in my SMF directory, but I couldn't see anything obviously wrong.  What I did discover though, was a ton of files named  Core.xxxxx  where the xxxxx was a number.  They seem to have started about the time I swapped over to SMF2.


I spoke to my host and they've put my forum back, but a day or so later I'm still getting these files.  Each one is about 30Meg, so it's a good job I have an unlimited disk space plan!


Anyway, I checked the files out but couldn't really read them.  They look like dump files or something.  Does anyone have any idea what these are?  If they are SMF created files?  And how to stop this happening?


Muchos gracias for any help. 

[Oya]

they are dump files

apache or php is crashing for some reason and dumping the core with the intention of being examined later
usually means either a bug in apache or php, or a miscompilation somewhere

[IrateZebra]

Try disabling hostname lookups as this is the cause of core dumps most of the time on shared servers.

Admin -> Server Settings -> Disable hostname lookups (check)

[chinaren]

Thanks Oya/AnnoyedZebra, I'll give it a go!

[Reefie]

I had a similar problem disable hostname worked for me

[chinaren]

Thanks guys, this seems to have done the trick.  No more core files since I changed this setting.


(Marking as solved).