Hi there --

We're encountering a bizarre issue, and we're wondering if anyone might help us shed some light on what's going on here.

When you ssh into the server, and check on apache, we get the following:

[root@turbo7.sagent ~]# /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl configtest
httpd: Syntax error on line 208 of /usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.conf: Cannot load /usr/local/apache/modules/libphp5.so into server: libltdl.so.3: file too short

However, simple cd-ing to the directory fixes the problem for the remainder of the ssh session:

[root@turbo7.sagent ~]# cd /usr/local/apache/modules
[root@turbo7.sagent modules]# /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl configtest
Syntax OK

When you log out / log back in via ssh, the problem occurs again. We've tried moving the directory itself to different locations / partitions, suspecting it was a disk issue, but that didn't help us. It's very, very strange. If anyone has a plausible explaination of what's happening here, I'd love to hear it. I'm somewhat stumped.

[root@turbo7.sagent modules]# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 6)

Traverse the path to /usr/local/apache/modules/ making sure the perms of each dir are such that not only root but the apache User (in httpd.conf) can traverse through and read those module files (which should also be perms 0755). All that stuff should be owned by root.

Another guess would be to make sure your libltdl distributions are matched to the running apache (if apache in /usr/local/apache this isn't a redhat apache then is it); there are several places an libltdl can be gotten that will install and run on a redhat box - a mismatch might cause problems. It's possible the /usr/local/apache stuff and modules got built against a different ltdl that is no longer present. Check/rebuild your ldconfig stuff, check the history of the system for package installs.

HTH