Apache spawns multiple processes

[Greenster]

Please help,

My server was running along fine then one day I couldn't get to the domain, did a "ps-ef" and noticed that there was 10 or so httpd processes. I killed them all (except apache) and re-accessed the page and hey presto 8 processes had appeared (I don't exactly have a traffic problem). I kill them all again - re-access the page and 8 httpd processes appear all with identical time. Is this something I have done wrong? Any of this ring a bell with anyone?

Thx {Greenser}

 

[ifincham]

Hi,









This is by design. On linux / unix, for security reasons only root or an init process can bind to a privileged port < 1024. So apache starts as user 'root' to bind to port 80 and then spawns a number of listeners which run as non-root processes for security purposes. So, with this design you need at least one listener. Why more ? Performance - the more listeners (each with multiple threads) the more simultaneous traffic can be handled.









The defaults in httpd.conf include :









StartServers 8








MinSpareServers 5








User apache











That means start 8 listeners (total 9 processes - root httpd process + 8 servers) and have a minimum of 5 idle listeners at all times (dynamically creating new listeners as necessary). The 'User' directive controls which non-root account the listeners run as (usually 'apache' or 'nobody').







There are lots of other related directives but, unless you have low traffic and are trying to save memory, I wouldn't recommend changing the defaults.







Hope this helps