general/6351: Apache won't finish client connections

[Wim Godden <wi...@godden.net>]

>Number:         6351
>Category:       general
>Synopsis:       Apache won't finish client connections
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       critical
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    apache
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   apache
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Jul 31 05:30:01 PDT 2000
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     wim@godden.net
>Release:        1.3.12
>Organization:
apache
>Environment:
RedHat Linux 6.2 with kernel 2.4.0-test4 on a Dual Pentium Pro 200Mhz
Apache 1.3.12 with modules expires, rewrite and so enabled. PHP 3.0.16 and PHP4.0pl2 installed.
egcs-2.91.66 compiler
>Description:
When running a PHP3 process with a timelimit of 60 seconds, server-status tells me :
1-2 16481 1/1/1 W  0.05 360 0 0.00 0.00000 0.00000 195.147.216.170 gnet.dhs.org GET /members/submit/submit.php3?uid=&url=
The list is full of such processes which stay at "W" status, while in fact they have timed out and the script has stopped running.
Eventually MaxClients is reached and no connections to the server can be made. ps shows that all processes are sleeping. Even server-status can no longer be accessed, since the server won't accept connections anymore.
I've seen similar problems listed in the bug list, but this one is quite annoying, as it requires me to do a "kill -HUP httpd" every 3-4 minutes, making everyone loose their connection to the server.

A few of the configuration entries :
Timeout 60
KeepAlive On
MaxKeepAliveRequests 0
KeepAliveTimeout 15
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10
StartServers 5
MaxClients 50
LoadModule php3_module        libexec/libphp3.so
LoadModule php4_module        libexec/libphp4.so
HostnameLookups Off


ErrorLog shows no errors at all, not even Maxclients reached.
>How-To-Repeat:
Well... I can repeat it anytime, but I'd rather not actually...
>Fix:
I'm afraid not. There's something wrong with the way Apache releases his clients back after PHP3 has executed. Maybe it's a PHP3-bug, but I haven't found anything even similar to this problem on the PHP3-lists. On the Apache buglist, several similar bugs exist and all of them seem to be unsolved.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
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