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I'm using prefork apache 2.2 and I can't seem to figure out why there is a MaxClients directive and a ServerLimit directive.

I understand that you need to increase both of these in step -- google has told me this over and over again. As far as I can tell they both control the maximum number of Apache process running at any time.

Why do they both exist? For prefork, they seem redundant. Is there a subtle difference I'm missing?

Gary Richardson
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  • Unless you have oodles of RAM you may want to *decrease* MaxClients, it depends on the average size of your httpd process. – HTTP500 Dec 06 '11 at 15:46

1 Answers1

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Serverlimit = limit for processes in general (default: 256)

MaxClients = limit for child-processes

You don't have to set ServerLimit as long as Maxclients < 256 btw. (but you can save some memory if you do so)

zaub3r3r
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    Specifically from the docs: "With the prefork MPM, use this directive only if you need to set MaxClients higher than 256 (default). Do not set the value of this directive any higher than what you might want to set MaxClients to." – Andrew M. Dec 06 '11 at 16:40