How to increase memory limit for PHP over 2GB?

I have an problem increasing memory limit for PHP as Apache module.

If I put following directive in Apache configuration, that work OK:

php_value memory_limit 1.99G

But over 2GB do not work, it's restore this value back to 128MB.

What is the problem here? I need more memory for some PDF related tasks.

Server is Debian 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP, PHP 5.3.3-7+squeeze13 with 12GB physical RAM.

Solution 1:

Have you tried using the value in MB ?

php_value memory_limit 2048M

Also try editing this value in php.ini not Apache.

Solution 2:

I would suggest you are looking at the problem in the wrong light. The questtion should be 'what am i doing that needs 2G memory inside a apache process with Php via apache module and is this tool set best suited for the job?'

Yes you can strap a rocket onto a ford pinto, but it's probably not the right solution.

Regardless, I'll provide the rocket if you really need it... you can add to the top of the script.

ini_set('memory_limit','2048M');

This will set it for just the script. You will still need to tell apache to allow that much for a php script (I think).