Linode's guide to hosting a website suggests these Apache settings:
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
StartServers 1
MinSpareServers 3
MaxSpareServers 6
MaxClients 24
MaxRequestsPerChild 3000
</IfModule>
The explanation given is:
You've successfully optimized Apache for your Linode, increasing performance and implementing safeguards to prevent excessive resource consumption. You're almost ready to host websites with Apache.
My question is: do these settings really increase performance -- and if so, how -- or just limit resource consumption -- or both?