really slow response time even with standard html file

[Peter Folk <peter.folk2@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi All,

I am running a two machine system with load balance on debian 4.0 and apache 2.0 .

I guess I am not a real expert in apache so , my ideas are limited .

both machines have 4 cores and 4 GB ram  (php apps) . 

What makes it more complex that we have many virtual hosts the apache config file is about 80 KB (almost one single file with all hosts and aliases) . 

What I see that when apache starts the memory starts to load up to 2,8 G see config below . and then processor goes back and forth . 

But even a single html file of 2Kb takes up to 5 seconds ! ! Firebug shows that connection time is about 4 sec (this is when its waiting for a slot  ? ) .

I keep seeing in the log that I need to increase maxclients but if I do so the memory consumption goes over the limit and we start to swap . 

What tools should I use to better understand the problem and trace down this issue? 

Any ideas are welcome ! 



cheers,
Peter

# prefork MPM
# StartServers: number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers: minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers: maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxClients: maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxRequestsPerChild: maximum number of requests a server process serves
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
#    StartServers          5
StartServers          50
#StartServers   100
#    MinSpareServers       5
     MinSpareServers       10
#     MinSpareServers       30
#    MaxSpareServers      10
    MaxSpareServers      90
#    MaxSpareServers      30
#    MaxSpareServers      100
#    MaxClients          150
    MaxClients          436
    ServerLimit         436
#old    MaxRequestsPerChild   0
    MaxRequestsPerChild   0
</IfModule>