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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news-in2.uu.net!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!uniserve!usenet 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> NNTP-Posting-Host: zip.uniserve.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=US-ASCII X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.6 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