mod_fcgid: No space left on device

Question

I'm having a problem where apache2 won't start at all on my VPS, and it outputs this error:

[Mon May 09 07:00:38 2011] [emerg] (28)No space left on device: mod_fcgid: Can't create shared memory for size 13018600 bytes

I know for a fact that I have enough memory (I have 2 gb available plus 1 gb burstable).

Any ideas on what it could be?

EDIT:

If it is any help, the VPS is running on OpenVZ and the guest operating system is Ubuntu 10.04 64bit

Answer 1

Something is using up all shared memory. As root run:

ipcs -m

This will give you a list of all shared memory allocations. The second column (shmid) gives you the id of the allocation.

If you want to remove some allocations, you can use:

ipcrm -m

It would be better to find out why a process is allocation all the memory and take steps against that (or get more memory).

Answer 2

@dgrimbergen is right. Check this for example: http://blog.forestsoft.de/2011/01/shared-memory-issue-with-mod_fcgid/

If not, is the sharemempath set in your Apache config (httpd.conf or apache2.conf)?

SharememPath /var/run/fcgid_shm

Make sure this directory exists, is chmod "700" and owned by the same owner as the webserver is running under (www / www-data).