Here's my php environment
*************************

[joe@willyslide joe]$ php -m
Running PHP 4.2.3
Zend Engine v1.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Zend Technologies

[PHP Modules]
xml, wddx, sysvshm, sysvsem, standard, sockets, session, posix, pcre, openssl, mysql, ftp, ctype, calendar, bcmath, zlib

'./configure' '--prefix=/usr' '--enable-debug' '--with-openssl' '--enable-sockets' '--with-regex=system' '--enable-inline-optimization' '--with- config-file-path=/etc' '--with-zlib' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-calendar' '-- enable-ftp' '--with-mysql' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-sysvsem' '-- enable-wddx' '--enable-memory-limit'

My issue
*********

sem_remove() seg.faults when called.  I'm trying to write a script for creating unique serial numbers on the fly.

(gdb) run -e ../serial.php4 
Starting program: /usr//bin/php -e ../serial.php4
X-Powered-By: PHP/4.2.3
Content-type: text/html

got semkey: 1628011873
semID: 1
got sem 1
MD5: 0a5d400ea944a83abe69221024433f56
released sem

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x08101e3b in zif_sem_remove (ht=1032230416, return_value=0x0, 
    this_ptr=0x3d86960f, return_value_used=0) at sysvsem.c:392
392             if(semctl(sem_ptr->semid, 0, IPC_RMID, &un) < 0) {
(gdb) bt
#0  0x08101e3b in zif_sem_remove (ht=1032230416, return_value=0x0, 
    this_ptr=0x3d86960f, return_value_used=0) at sysvsem.c:392
(gdb) print sem_ptr
$1 = (sysvsem_sem *) 0x0

*************************************************
It would appear that somewhere in the code behind sem_remove($semId) the sem_ptr->semid is NULL? 
*************************************************

My php code
***********

<?php

$semKey = ftok("php-serial.ipc",'a');

$semId = sem_get($semKey, 1, 0666);
if ($semId === FALSE) {
  echo "missed semkey\n";
  exit();
} 
else {
  echo "got semkey: $semKey\n";
  echo "semID: $semId\n";
}

$semAcquired = sem_acquire($semId);
if ($semAcquired === FALSE) {
  echo "missed sem acquisition\n";
  sem_remove($semId);
  exit(3);
}
else echo "got sem $semAcquired\n";
sleep(1);

// this probably is not SMP safe without the semaphore
$str = md5(uniqid(rand(),1));

echo "MD5: $str\n";
$r = sem_release($semId);
if ($r === FALSE) {
   echo "didn't release sem";
   exit(1);
 }
else echo "released sem\n";

/* SIGSEGV in sem_remove, so we'll not do it now
$r = sem_remove($semId);
if ($r === FALSE) {
  echo "didn't remove sem\n";
  exit(1);
}
else echo "removed sem\n";

*/

echo "\n\nDONE\n\n";

?>

I've had the same problem on PHP 4.1.2 (where I originally found it) on Red Hat 7.3 with the PHP RPM installed and 'up2date'd.