The development snapshot of Drupal causes error on my server

Question

After having terrible errors with Drupal commons, I decided to install the standard version Drupal developing snapshot (from January 12th).

The original .htaccess was not acceptable; in other words, with the original .htaccess file, it does not show a site at all. I could not see the installation-site at all.

I replaced the .htaccess file with a hacked one.

After the installation I got the following results:

• the final site was blank (http://www.linux-board.com/install.php?profile=minimal&locale=en&op=start&id=1)

• after accessing to basic-site - linux-board.com i see the following error messages:

  Warning: opendir(modules/simpletest/tests/themes/test_theme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/field/modules/list/tests) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/update/tests/themes/update_test_subtheme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/update/tests/themes/update_test_basetheme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/block/tests/themes/block_test_theme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/simpletest/tests/themes/test_theme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/field/modules/list/tests) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/update/tests/themes/update_test_subtheme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/update/tests/themes/update_test_basetheme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).
  Warning: opendir(modules/block/tests/themes/block_test_theme) [function.opendir]: failed to open dir: Too many open files in file_scan_directory() (line 2034 of /home/vhost/WWW/linux-board.com/includes/file.inc).

Can I patch Drupal to go round the too many files open issue, or do I have to upgrade the server, which is six years old?

PS: The information about the server are the following one:

• Web server: Apache/1.3.41 (Unix) mod_gzip/1.3.26.1a mod_throttle/3.1.2 mod_ssl/2.8.31 OpenSSL/0.9.8a
  • PHP 5.3.8
  • PHP register global: disabled
  • PHP extensions: enabled
  • Database support: enabled
  • PHP memory limit: 64M

I guess that the file handlers of Apache could be set up to a higher limit.

Answer 1

1. Apache 1.3, is considered deprecated. The very first thing I would try, is upgrading to a 2.* version, preferably 2.2, and try installing again with the standard .htaccess file. Given the enormous amount of apache servers running Drupal, the standard file should work.
2. What is the output of "cat /proc/sys/fs/file-nr"? That's useful for tracking down the to many open files issue, which likely is a server wide issue, and not really Drupal related.
3. While all patches to the 7 branch of core should pass all tests, it could be that you have stumbled on a broken commit. Why do you install -dev? Install 7.10 instead.