[users@httpd] Abrot, Retry, Ignore?

["Forder, Matt" <Ma...@sensis.com.au>]

Hi all, hope you can help with this one,

I'm seeing some weird behaviour with Apache and I'm wondering if anybody
here has experienced the same things. First of, the basics...I'm running
Apache/1.3.22 on Sun Solaris 2.8, and for pesky technical reasons I can't
upgrade to a later version of Apache just yet.

The problem I'm expierencing is this...the system running Apache will max
out, preventing user logins and generally making life hard for the system.
After logging in as root I see that Apache processes, especially rotatelogs
are occupying heaps of CPU time and memory. A quick check in the apache logs
directory shows a huge error log filled with the message "Abort, Retry,
Ignore".

After a bit of further investigation I find the following message before the
start of the continuous Abort... messages:

Ouch!  malloc failed in malloc_block()
[Thu Aug 29 09:07:09 2002] [error] (12)Not enough space: fork: Unable to
fork new process
Out of memory.  Please free some memory, then choose retry.
Abort, Retry, Ignore?

I find all of this a little strange as "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" is not really
a message you'd expect to see on a Solaris Platform =;o)

What I having trouble establishing is whether Apache (or one of it's
components) is the cause of the problems, or whether is it simply being
affected by the problems. I'm also wondering if this could be caused by a
DoS attack, or whether it is simply a system problem. The general feeling
amongst my colleagues is that rotatelogs may well be the cause of the
problems...has anyone had similar experiences?

Regards,

Matthew Forder
Senior System Administrator - Technology Infrastructure
* +61 3 9403 7176 or +61 409 357 362
@ matthew.forder@sensis.com.au
* Sensis Pty Ltd, 181-189 Victoria Parade, Collingwood, VIC 3066

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