Re: [users@httpd] Apache fails to restart

Ed Zaborowski <subscriptions.apacheusers@xxxxxxxxxxx> · Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:06:28 -0400

I don't know a whole lot, but with only one process starting it sounds 

like you may have the debug switch on (-X). I am unsure how different 

RedHat is from Fedora, but if you have a /etc/sysconfig/httpd I would 

look in there to see if you have the -X option turned on.

-X     Run httpd in debug mode. Only one worker will be started and the
             server will not detach from the console.

Robert Fox wrote:

Rob-

Thanks for the response.

This is definitely not a configuration issue. The error logs don't 

seem to indicate why only one process starts, but the children fail to 

start. I get a normal startup message in the logs. The only thing that 

clears this is re-booting the host.

Are there other places where I could look?

Rob

Rob Wilkerson wrote:

I'd check your config first.  I forget the syntax for Redhat, but for
my Knoppix system it's "/usr/sbin/apache2 -t".  To check your system,
locate the httpd executable and display it's help:

"/path/to/httpd -h"

Then, assuming everything checks out, check /var/log/httpd.  Hopefully
this will provide enough info to move forward.

On 7/24/06, Robert Fox <rfox2@xxxxxx> wrote:

Hello again-

I haven't received any responses on this, so I thought maybe I could 

simplify my question. If Apache fails to restart,

where should I look to find out why? The log files? System logs? 

Other Apache files (which ones)? Should I run a

diagnostic while Apache is frozen? What should I look for?

Thanks very much for any replies. I'm starting somewhat from ground 

zero here.

Rob Fox

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Apache overwhelmed, restart fails
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 11:42:07 -0400
From: Robert Fox <rfox2@xxxxxx>
To: users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello-

We've been using Apache 2 here at Notre Dame libraries for several 

years now, and for the most part, the performance has

been very reliable. However, there have been times during very peak 

usage periods when the Apache servers will freeze

and essentially stop responding to further requests. We have several 

CGI applications running under the server that can

be taxing, and sometimes Apache seems to get overwhelmed, and the 

maximum number of available server spawns are reached.

When this happens, I've tried to restart Apache by first shutting it 

down and then starting the server again. However,

what usually happens is that the first server process will start, 

and child processes do not spawn. This renders Apache

useless again, and I'm usually forced to completely re-boot the 

server machine on which Apache is running in order to

clear RAM and reset the network connections. Then, Apache comes up 

and everything is fine until the next incident. Here

are some specs on our installation:

Server version: Apache/2.0.54
OS Version: Red Hat EL 3.0 (kernel 2.4.21-4.ELsmp)
Modules loaded: PHP 5, authentication modules, etc.

The CGI applications are mainly Perl based.

I've looked in the Apache logs (both main and error) and there is no 

indication that the server is failing around the

time that Apache freezes up. It seems odd that I can't stop the 

Apache servers and restart them, which solves 90% of

these sorts of issues with Apache. Except for administrative 

purposes, I rarely need to restart Apache, so this isn't a

major issue. But, I would like to know where to look to try and 

determine what is happening when I'm unable to restart

Apache. It's odd that the first process would start but the child 

processes won't. Any ideas?

Thank you for your help,

Rob Fox

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