[CentOS] Server unresponsive until reboot, memory exhausted

Tue Dec 28 14:59:39 UTC 2010
james <james at wintercastle.net>

I'm having an issue with an apache web server running the latest CentOS5
kernel (this issue is not new to the kernel). After a few days/weeks of
running the server will become unresponsive and will require a physical
reboot in order to come back online. The system is so unresponsive when
the issue occurs that login at console is not even possible. 

I have atop installed and have looked back before the crash to see what
happened process wise and I can see the http starts using a lot of
memory and CPU usage. The vmcommit jumps from 1.8 GB to 4.8GB in a
matter of a few minutes. The VSIZE of the httpd process jumps from 8.1GB
to 36.9GB. So apache is doing something -- but how can I get historical
data for this? I also see that paging is very active, probably why the 
server is unresponsive. I have looked through the apache logs and system 
logs and there is nothing
obvious that is consuming all that memory. I know of the server-status
module for apache but that is only useful if you can get to the server
during the crash (I can't) and doesn't have any historical data. 

The issue occurs seemingly randomly, last time in the middle of the night 
with little or no user traffic. 

James

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