*BSD News Article 80892


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From: tom@uniserve.com (Tom)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Apache Server Error:  Cannot Spawn Child Process
Date: 15 Oct 1996 23:34:48 GMT
Organization: UNIServe Online
Lines: 35
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <54172p$4g7@atlas.uniserve.com>
References: <3263CEEF.1F78@digicity.net>
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In article <3263CEEF.1F78@digicity.net>, damien@digicity.net says...
>
>This may seem off topic, but I suspect the problem to be related to
>the underlying FreeBSD 2.1.0R on our web server.
>
>Basically, without much warning, all of our CGI programs error out
>more often than they run - both Perl scripts and compiled C.  The
>error logged by the Apache httpd is that it couldn't spawn the child
>process.  The CGI stuff runs the gamut from custom to standards like
>chiemail, counters and redirect.
>
>System is a Pentium 133 with 64 Meg.  Kernel is generic (which I half
>suspect may be the issue).  A ps shows that all combined processes are
>using about 50% of the memory, and very little CPU resources.
>
>Has anyone seen this problem?  Any clues why it would suddenly begin?
>Is it related perhaps to an increase in server traffic?
>
>Really need some help with this one.  Thanks!
>
>Damien

  Is httpd running non-root?  If so, whatever user httpd runs
at probably hit the per-user process limit.  By default, this
limit is 40.

  You can change this by building a new kernel.  Add the following
to your config file:

options         "CHILD_MAX=256"
options         "OPEN_MAX=256"


Tom