Apache takes all the server's ram with child processes

[tibberous]

I do a ps aux, and get a bunch of:

 

/usr/sbin/httpd

 

Each one takes up like 4% of the available ram - and when the ram is gone, the server dies (it doesn't have a swap file - half the time you can't even log in to it), and you have to reboot Apache.

 

Any idea what to do?

 

I thought of limiting maxchilds, but would that break something else?

 

Should I just make a swap file? Will that defeat the point of creating child processes?

[steviewdr]

Here is my tweaked apache2.conf on a box with 190MB doing mail, mysql, web etc. etc.:

 

<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>

    StartServers          5

    MinSpareServers      5

    MaxSpareServers      10

    MaxClients          150

    MaxRequestsPerChild 1000

</IfModule>

 

The MaxRequestPerChild will help if memory is not been released back.

There is plenty of reading out there on configuring the above, and I recommend you do some googling. Alas, I dont have a URL handy.

 

-steve