general/1181: Too many virtual hosts cause cgi scripts to stop working

[Charles Howes <ch...@ics.bc.ca>]

>Number:         1181
>Category:       general
>Synopsis:       Too many virtual hosts cause cgi scripts to stop working
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    apache (Apache HTTP Project)
>State:          open
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   apache
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Sep 30 02:30:02 1997
>Originator:     chowes@ics.bc.ca
>Organization:
apache
>Release:        1.2.4
>Environment:
Linux 2.0.30, maximum file descriptors 256
uname -a: Linux c 2.0.30 #3 Tue Jul 22 18:21:58 PDT 1997 i586 
>Description:
The customer called to report that their page counter wasn't working.
Testing showed that no cgi script anywhere was working.
Tracing showed that open() calls were failing with EMFILE (Too many open files)
Logs showed:
[Tue Sep 30 01:15:46 1997] access to /www/cgi-bin/counter failed for cirrus.imag
.net, reason: couldn't spawn child process
>How-To-Repeat:
Stuff 125 virtual servers, each with two log files, into your httpd.conf file.
Agitate gently.  Pour into a tall glass and quaff deeply.  And then try to call
a page counter.
>Fix:
Check for EMFILE and log a better error message, or find a way to reduce file
handle usage
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: