I'm currently running into a really strange issue.
My apache (prefork - 2.2.15) is running into MaxClients Limit and is therefore not responding to requests anymore.
The Server-Status is showing a lot of Requests in state W
Sending Reply, but with a quite high SS value
This Apache Childs increasing over time, but never leave this state (until we gracefully restart apache)
Srv PID Acc M CPU SS Req Conn Child Slot Client VHost Request
...
60-0 1383 0/111/300 W 3.71 3866 0 0.0 0.30 2.71 10.20.0.1 www.domain.com GET /a.html
61-0 1026 0/160/166 W 3.87 4593 0 0.0 1.35 1.35 10.20.0.1 www.domain.com GET /b.html
62-0 1338 0/21/21 W 3.59 4171 0 0.0 5.12 5.12 10.20.0.1 www.domain.com GET /c.html
...
This are different Requests and I can't see any problem on this (php)Pages. Overall the load of this (unix) server is low.
My question is, should this requests (seems like they are still 'running') not be terminated after some time? Which timeouts are responsible for handling such situations? Hopefully you are able to give me some hints ;-)
Overall