Location for session files in Apache/PHP

Question

What is the default location of session files on an installation of Apache/PHP on Ubuntu 10.10?

Answer 1

Another common default location besides /tmp/ is /var/lib/php5/

Answer 2

The only surefire option to find the current session.save_path value is always to check with phpinfo() in exactly the environment where you want to find out the session storage directory.

Reason: there can be all sorts of things that change session.save_path, either by overriding the php.ini value or by setting it at runtime with ini_set('session.save_path','/path/to/folder');. For example, web server management panels like ISPConfig, Plesk etc. often adapt this to give each website its own directory with session files.

Answer 3

First check the value of session.save_path using ini_get('session.save_path') or phpinfo(). If that is non-empty, then it will show where the session files are saved. In many scenarios it is empty by default, in which case read on:

On Ubuntu or Debian machines, if session.save_path is not set, then session files are saved in /var/lib/php5.

On RHEL and CentOS systems, if session.save_path is not set, session files will be saved in /var/lib/php/session

I think that if you compile PHP from source, then when session.save_path is not set, session files will be saved in /tmp (I have not tested this myself though).