I have been scouring the net for my specific issue. All the responses suggest that either the file permissions are wrong or that the ulimit is set too low. I know that neither of these is my problem because Apache starts at boot and sometimes restarts while the server is running. While it is running I seem to be able to kill -1 as often as I want. However, if the server stops for any reason, there is a good chance that it won't restart and gives me the "unable to open logs" message. I am running NetBSD 5.1. Here is some info from sysctl relating to number of files: kern.maxfiles = 52364 proc.curproc.rlimit.filesize.soft = unlimited proc.curproc.rlimit.filesize.hard = unlimited An fstat | wc -l gives numbers an order of magnitude below maxfiles. Currently, even with Apache running, it is sitting at 7638. When I try to restart my ulimit is unlimited. Here is my memory usage currently. MemTotal: 16252760 kB MemFree: 14894768 kB MemShared: 0 kB Buffers: 304496 kB Cached: 799904 kB SwapTotal: 8389548 kB SwapFree: 8389548 kB Here is more information about my system: NetBSD 5.1 (VEX) #0: Sun Oct 21 09:19:41 EDT 2012 door@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx:/usr/obj/sys/arch/amd64/compile.amd64/VEX total memory = 16382 MB avail memory = 15868 MB timecounter: Timecounters tick every 10.000 msec timecounter: Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 100 SMBIOS rev. 2.31 @ 0xdc010 (57 entries) HP ProLiant DL140 G3 (436602-001) mainbus0 (root) cpu0 at mainbus0 apid 0: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu1 at mainbus0 apid 4: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu2 at mainbus0 apid 2: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu3 at mainbus0 apid 6: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu4 at mainbus0 apid 1: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu5 at mainbus0 apid 5: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu6 at mainbus0 apid 3: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 cpu7 at mainbus0 apid 7: Intel 686-class, 2992MHz, id 0xf64 As for log permissions, here are all the files and directories, including parents, with today's timestamps. -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 5955946 Feb 25 00:00 suexec.log.2013.02.25 drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 3584 Feb 25 00:00 . drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 7168 Feb 25 00:00 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 23050427 Feb 25 00:00 access.2013.02.25 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 7462145 Feb 25 00:00 error.2013.02.25 -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 1825540 Feb 25 11:50 error -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 3246059 Feb 25 11:51 suexec.log -rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 5245858 Feb 25 11:51 access As you can see I am running suExec but this problem happened before I implemented that. In fact, suExec allowed me to run one server instead of multiple ones. I was hoping that it would solve my problem by reducing resource usage but no joy. I can't imaging what other information I can supply here but if you need more please let me know. This machine takes five minutes to reboot so I would really like a way that does not involve booting. Any help really appreciated. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain System Administrator, Vex.Net http://www.Vex.Net/ IM:darcy@xxxxxxx Voip: sip:darcy@xxxxxxx --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx