general/3709: Spontaniously Starts up new top level HTTPD processes which eats up CPU time & never ends

[Gary Paul <gp...@corp.sbc.com>]

>Number:         3709
>Category:       general
>Synopsis:       Spontaniously Starts up new top level HTTPD processes which eats up CPU time & never ends
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    apache
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   apache
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Jan 18 10:10:00 PST 1999
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     gpaul@corp.sbc.com
>Organization:
apache
>Release:        1.3.1 (Unix)
>Environment:
SunOS cshr1 5.5.1 Generic_103640-08 sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-Enterprise
>Description:
Throughout the day, a top level httpd process trys to start despite the fact
that the web server is already running and it is being started by the original
or "real" top level parent process.  This rouge start-up just takes a lot
of system resources and will stay in the "Starting Up" ad nauseum.  
This can happen multiple times in a day and we have had multiple rouge top level 
processes eating up tons of CPU cycles.  Once we knew what to look for, 
(a top level owned httpd process, whose parent is the "real" top level parent
process) we began sending alerts to see if there is a pattern, but no pattern 
has emerged yet, maybe it's system load related.  All other children are 
spawned as they should be and seem to play nice, they have different user id 
and tend to share better etc.  Any help/advice you can give would help.  Thanks!
>How-To-Repeat:
Just wait a while and it will happen.
>Fix:
All we have been able to do it to have a script detect and alert us of it's 
existence, then well have to kill the rouge child process, that thinks it's a 
parent.  I would like to REALLY fix this and not just cover the symptoms, any 
help would be appreciated.
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
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