I'm having trouble with zombies. Red Hat 7.1 on a Dell server with 1 GB memory. The following ps output shows a somewhat typical output. Sometimes there are no zombies, but most of the time there are several, and often as many as this. Performance often seems sluggish, and I am assuming that this is because of this problem, though I don't know that for sure. Turning off the database lowers usage and decreases the number of zombies, but I don't know if this is due to the database or to the lower usage.
I can't figure out what is going on. Any help / suggestions would be much appreciated. $ ps -aux | grep apache root 30060 0.4 0.3 5564 3508 ? S 13:36 0:04 /usr/local/apache apache 15892 0.0 0.3 5632 3612 ? S 13:54 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16631 0.0 0.3 5632 3612 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16690 2.2 1.1 16604 11372 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16892 6.8 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16894 0.2 0.3 5632 3680 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16903 0.3 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16911 0.2 0.3 5648 3696 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16939 0.0 0.3 5640 3680 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16957 25.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16962 0.0 0.3 5652 3692 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16963 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16964 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16969 0.0 0.3 5636 3676 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16970 0.0 0.3 5636 3684 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16985 0.0 0.3 5636 3676 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16987 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16989 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16991 1.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16992 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16993 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16994 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 13:55 0:00 [httpd <defunct>] apache 16995 0.0 0.3 5636 3676 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache apache 16996 1.0 0.3 5636 3676 ? S 13:55 0:00 /usr/local/apache admin 16998 0.0 0.0 1740 604 pts/0 S 13:55 0:00 grep apache My httpd.conf has the following: KeepAlive Off MaxKeepAliveRequests 100 KeepAliveTimeout 15 MinSpareServers 10 MaxSpareServers 15 StartServers 15 MaxClients 35 MaxRequestsPerChild 300 /usr/local/apachessl/bin/httpd -V Server version: Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) Server built: Aug 10 2002 01:35:37 Server's Module Magic Number: 19990320:13 Server compiled with.... -D EAPI -D HAVE_MMAP -D HAVE_SHMGET -D USE_SHMGET_SCOREBOARD -D USE_MMAP_FILES -D HAVE_FCNTL_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D HAVE_SYSVSEM_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D SINGLE_LISTEN_UNSERIALIZED_ACCEPT -D HTTPD_ROOT="/usr/local/apachessl" -D SUEXEC_BIN="/usr/local/apachessl/bin/suexec" -D DEFAULT_PIDLOG="logs/httpd.pid" -D DEFAULT_SCOREBOARD="logs/httpd.scoreboard" -D DEFAULT_LOCKFILE="logs/httpd.lock" -D DEFAULT_ERRORLOG="logs/error_log" -D TYPES_CONFIG_FILE="conf/mime.types" -D SERVER_CONFIG_FILE="conf/httpd.conf" -D ACCESS_CONFIG_FILE="conf/access.conf" -D RESOURCE_CONFIG_FILE="conf/srm.conf" I built it with: -rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 2303147 Aug 9 22:10 apache_1.3.26.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 372525 Aug 9 22:14 mod_perl-1.27.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 753241 Aug 9 23:27 mod_ssl-2.8.10-1.3.26.tar.gz -rw-r--r-- 1 admin admin 2170570 Aug 10 01:22 openssl-0.9.6g.tar.gz Thanks, Tim