closing apache connections

[csgonan]

I have 2.2.11 running on Solaris 10 and 8 servers. I notice sometimes up to 70 httpd processes. How can I stop so many processes?

My conf settings are

KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 100
KeepAliveTimeout 7

<IfModule prefork.c>
StartServers 5
MinSpareServers 20
MaxSpareServers 40
ServerLimit 350
MaxClients 350
MaxRequestsPerChild 0
</IfModule>

I have other sockets that start when apache children start (mysqld and shibboleth sockets) and I believe they will close when the child closes. How can I see if they are closing or how to close them please?

Any help would be required.

 

[elgrandeperro]

I believe the mod_status and enabling the status page will help. Often, children are hanging around just to avoid forking overhead, that is why MinSpareServers.

 

[csgonan]

Thank you very much. I see that I have MinSpareServers 20 and that is how many mysql.sock and other processes that use sockets have open.

What is the upside and downside of reducing that number please?

I am sorry for not knowing and would love to find a good tutorial on it.

Thank you

 

[elgrandeperro]

I am not a thread guy, but with Apache 2 and threads having extra processes do not take up much resources. That is the point of threads; I think it might take a proc table slot but not much more. This was more vital in Apache 1.

So having extra MinSpareServers is a bit quicker on startup because the kernel doesn't have to spend time with all the process startup book keeping. Again, threads is probably not going to be a big issue on this.

I figured lots of this out by mod_status and reading the apache documents on this issue. I'm sure someone knows some tutorial that spews it better.