general/2825: servers die to open slots

[johnny best <jb...@rockr.com>]

>Number:         2825
>Category:       general
>Synopsis:       servers die to open slots
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       serious
>Priority:       medium
>Responsible:    apache
>State:          open
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   apache
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Aug 10 22:30:00 PDT 1998
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     jb@rockr.com
>Organization:
apache
>Release:        1.3.0
>Environment:
running Redhat Linux 5.0 compiled with gcc
>Description:
the system seems to run normally, except that the servers
gradually die off, turning from "waiting for connection" 
to "open slot" on the scoreboard.  once they stop
listening they don't appear to wake up again, except that
a graceful restart resets them to the full number.
the parameters of the httpd.conf are:

Timeout 100
KeepAlive On
KeepAliveTimeout 15
MinSpareServers 20
MaxSpareServers 200
StartServers 50
MaxClients 500 (compiled with HARD_SERVER_LIMIT=512)
MaxRequestsPerChild 30

this is a Pentium II 233 Mhz with 256 MB of ram.  I set the 
server parameters high because we are expecting alot of
traffic.  the current vmstat (no servers dead) is

procs                  memory    swap        io    system         cpu
 r b w  swpd  free  buff cache  si  so   bi   bo   in   cs  us  sy  id
 0 0 0     0 73740 122340 27020   0   0    3    0  109   12   0   0 100 

i suppose i can watch constantly and do graceful restarts all day
long, but is there something basically wrong here i'm doing.
thank you for your time in advance

johnny best <jb...@rockr.com> 
>How-To-Repeat:
problem not visible from the outside
>Fix:

>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
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