From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Apr 3 12:56:53 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA26341 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:56:53 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from nothing.infoinsights.com ([208.151.124.130]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA26067; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 12:56:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dustin@infoinsights.com) Received: from localhost (dustin@localhost) by nothing.infoinsights.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id LAA11262; Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:49:05 -0900 (AKST) (envelope-from dustin@infoinsights.com) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 11:49:05 -0900 (AKST) From: Dustin Andrews Reply-To: Dustin Andrews To: Andrew Heath cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Memory Leak??? Apache, CGI, can't spawn child process In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="0-630462094-891597746=:1028" Content-ID: Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info. --0-630462094-891597746=:1028 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-ID: On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Andrew Heath wrote: }Dear Questions.... } }I am at a loss to explain my problem, I have tried almost everything I can }think of with our configuration, and I am running into major problems. } }We run a webserver which supports about 50 clients, and uses alot of CGI }developed scripts as a back end. } [snippage] Hold it right there. Before you blame the OS or the web server I would look into these scripts. I have seen one script, that seemed to be written fine, crash a similar system. If your scripts are in C then I would suspect one of them to be the culprit of the memory leak. Here is a way to test my hypothesis. Turn off half the scripts. See if that helps. If it does not turn them back on and turn off the other half. If one of theses steps works, then just keep halving the number of scripts you are running till you find the culprit. It could be a combination of scripts causing the problems or more than one may be causing the exact same problem. If so the 'half' approach might not find it. Also your customers might gripe less if you turn them off one at a time, but this is way more tedious. Look closely at any scripts that fork a lot of processes. Look at the child code to make sure it is cleaning itself up well when it dies. I will bet you a Henry Weinharts Root Beer that it's a script with leak in the children or child creation process. You could be having an OS or web server related problem, however I am running a similar system at an ISP with a reasonable number of scripts and it is robust and stable. Good luck solving your problem. -- Dustin Andrews, 907 452-2461 -- Email: dustin@infoinsights.com dustina@mindless.com "I see the light at the end of the tunnel, someone please tell me that it's not a train" --Cracker --0-630462094-891597746=:1028-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message