Help me in setting up MaxClients (Apache Users)

Hello All,

This is regarding production servers. Recently Apache server hit MaxClient settings; resulting in crash of sites. However, sites was back to normal after restarting Apache.

I read about MaxClient settings and increase it from 200 to 250 (as I read somewhere that 256 is a limit). Since then sites are working fine. But still I see average concurrent request on Apache is 180-200 which sometime goes to 220 as well. This is threatening, as we are planning to put more sites live on same Apache.

Therefore, I am considering to increase MaxClient in order to handle "at-least" 600 concurrent request.

I will be grateful if somebody can assist me in setting the right values for ServerLimit, MaxClient, MinSpareServers and MaxSpareServers. Also, what maximum values I can have for MaxClients (want to know max concurrent users Apache can handle.)

Machine Specs are:

Manufacturer: Sun
Model: T5240
Operating System: Solaris 10 10/08 s10s_u6wos_07b SPARC
CPU(s): 2x UltraSPARC-T2+ @1415 MHz; 128 Cores 128 Threads
Memory: 32544 MB

Apache Version:
Server version: Apache/2.2.11 (Unix)
Server built:   Jan 5 2009 22:19:26

Existing MaxClient Settings:

<IfModule prefork.c>
StartServers       8
MinSpareServers    5
MaxSpareServers   20
MaxClients       250
MaxRequestsPerChild 0
</IfModule>

Note: I am not good in Solaris/*.nix commands :(

Bye,
Viki.