Apache running at over 3000% CPU Load!

3000% CPU Load

[jonbev]

I have reciently had a problem with our web server running slow. When it is running slow Apache Status reports that it is using 1000% - 4000% CPU Load.

The only way I have found to solve the problem was to restart the server. I also tried restarting Apache which didnt seem to work.

Has any one seen this problem befor or does anyone have any advise on how to solve the problem or even stop it happening.

The server is running Apache 2.0.49 with PHP 4.3.7 on FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE #0

Cheers

Bev

[Sanenet]

OUCH.

Sounds like a runaway thread problem - somewhere, an application goes nuts and uses up all the memory and free CPU.

We used to have the same problem on an IIS box running CF5.0 - turns out that some idiot had put an include that called the calling page, so each time somebody hit that page it started a runaway loop, calling each other. Wouldn't crash the server, but all available resources would be sent to run this one process, you'd have to restart to fix.

We eventually traced it down via the application logs by looking for the last pages called before the server would slow.

[jonbev]

It doesnt seem to be quite the same as that as apache still seems to be working ok and not really slow. Also when I check the processor load from the command line it shows as pretty normal 6-25%.

The problem shows it self by taking a long time to create zip files for the users to download - usually takes seconds but when the problem occurs it takes minutes! I cant see any processes taking large amounts of resourses (using "top" from the command line) The only strange thing is the 1000%+ on the apache status.