Apache high CPU utilization

[mufka]

I have apache 1.3.26 running on Redhat 7.1 with openssl 0.9.6e, php4.2.2, mysql3.23 and jrun 3.1. Very frequently, the CPU goes to near 100% and the server stops responding to http requests. The module that is hogging the cpu is httpd. Any ideas on how I can troubleshoot this? This happened on previous versions of apache too.

Thanks

 

[RhythmAce]

It sounds like for some reason, you are getting runaway child processes. I have been using RH since version 5.1 and never had this problem so I'm not sure how to solve it, but have you modified how man servers and child processes to open in httpd.conf?