Hi I have a centos instance on a host where uname -a shows: Linux cl28810.com 2.6.18-194.26.1.el5.028stab079.2PAE #1 SMP Fri Dec 17 19:34:22 MSK 2010 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux Periodically my ssh access and http access slow dramatically and I get out of memory when trying to do rudimentary stuff like ls. I've been advised by tech support to try service httpd restart. This works. But the first thing that happens after the command is issued is that the load goes up to about 15 then slowly declines to a more typical figure, in the range feom .1 to 1.3, which is fine. It takes several minutes before the site is really usable. I now have 22 apache instances out of 66 total processes, which seems excessive. One site hosted, running drupal 7, 1.5G RAM lots of disk spece, two cores, Xeon based host. I don't know if this is an apache issue or CentOS related or what. Ideas? Debugging I can do? Dave -- “When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” - Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935