[log4perl-devel] Unusual problem with Log4perl

[Lawrence R. <Lar...@nm...>]

We are currently using the Log4Perl in coordination with Apache mod_perl
for an application on Solaris 8, generally very happily.  We use the
Synchronized log appender, which generally does a good job interleaving the
logs from the various requests into a single file.

On occassion (very intermittent), however, when we restart Apache, the
semaphore '_l4p' gets locked up, resulting in the application failing when
trying to initialize Log4perl.  The error message received in the Apache
error log is:
[Wed Oct 13 09:42:10 2004] [error] Cannot remove semaphore 1600926832 at
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/Log/Log4perl/Appender/Synchronized.pm
line 127.

which corresponds to a failure to remove the semaphore in the nuke_sem
function.  Restarting Apache has no effect, so the application is locked
out until the administrator intervenes.   The remedy is to track down the
offending sempahore and perform an ipcrm on it.

It seems like the nuke_sem function was designed just for this type of
situation, so it is odd that this error occurs.  My suspicion is that there
is some permissions issue having to do with who created the semaphore --
but from what I can tell, the creator is always the same.

Has anyone seen a problem like this before?

Thanks
Larry Reisler