*BSD News Article 81094


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From: "Thomas Pedersen" <thomas@cscdc.be>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Apache Server Error:  Cannot Spawn Child Process
Date: 18 Oct 1996 10:30:21 GMT
Organization: CSC Datacentralen A/S, Bruxelles
Lines: 31
Message-ID: <01bbbce7$ea43cdc0$5ef107c2@pc94.cscdc.be>
References: <3263CEEF.1F78@digicity.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc94.cscdc.be
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155

I ran into the same problem after I had installed a new search engine.
I noticed that if you do a vmstat and the free available memory is less
than say 3-5 megs the system would not spawn a child process.
One parameter I had to change to make it work is the process
parameters in the srm.conf file( start servers, child processes etc)
Make sure that you have enough processes available to the httpd.

/Thomas

Damien Thorn <damien@digicity.net> wrote in article
<3263CEEF.1F78@digicity.net>...
> 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
>