[NTLUG:Discuss] apache error message

[Victor Brilon]

You probably just need to a closer look at what your CGIs are doing. If 
every single CGI process forks off its own copy of perl, opens up a 
database connection, does some heavy database work which takes a while, 
then yeah...1 gig of memory can get eaten up pretty quick :)
Take a look at mod_perl if you are in fact using a perl/db combination to 
run your site. In general anything that gets rid of the CGI fork/exec 
process will help you in this scenario if the problem is indeed related to 
process table/memory problems.

Victor

At 02:48 PM 3/5/2001 -0600, David Camm wrote:
>Victor Brilon wrote:
> >
> > You'll see messages like this if  Apache has too many process already
> > running (i.e. a bunch of CGI's running that haven't exited) and they eat up
> > all the available file handles that the OS can handle,
>
>i currently have file-max set to 4096. would making this larger (like
>6144) possibly help?
>
> >or the process table
> > gets full for the parent process (i.e. Apache). Check to see that some long
> > running processes aren't doing this. You'll also get this message if a
> > process has eaten up all the memory and swap space and there's no enough
> > left for a new process to be forked off and executed.
>
>although i have 1Gig RAM on the machine, being out of memory IS a
>possibility....
>
> >
> > Victor
> >
> > At 02:19 PM 3/5/2001 -0600, David Camm wrote:
> > >this is the second time i've noticed error messages linke this in my
> > >logs (apache 1.3.9):
> > >
> > >[Mon Mar  5 13:13:40 2001] [error] [client 12.75.65.208] (11)Resource
> > >temporarily unavailable: couldn't spawn child process:
> > >/usr/local/etc/httpd/cgi-bin/byrd/rotate7.pl
> > >
> > >they appear for about 1 to 1-1/2 minutes, always referencing cgi
> > >programs, and then go away.
> > >
> > >could i have exceeded the maxclient number in httpd.conf (i tend to
> > >doubt this)? or is this a kernel issue?
> > >
> > >can anyone help me by explaining why this is happening, and what if
> > >anything i can do to stop it from happening again?
> > >
> > >as an aside, does anyone know where theses messages are documented? they
> > >are NOT in the o'reilly apache reference, nor have i been able to find
> > >them on the web.....
> > >
> > >thanks!!!
> > >
> > >david camm
> > >advanced web systems
> > >keller, tx
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> >
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