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So everytime I load a new page, I notice a new HTTPD process opens, every time I click a page, and each process says it's using anywhere from 2-4.5% of memory. Does that mean every single process is running at that time using 2-4% of RAM? It's a brand new server and I'm the only one on the server at the moment.

Or does it mean all the other processes are dying, and only the new one is active. Because 4% of my 2048MB of RAM is already 82MB for just one process!?!?

Let me know, because I am trying to determine what I need to beef my server up in order to handle high loads of traffic. I'm expect to get 20,000 uniques per day on launch.

I am currently running a Dual Quad Xeon server, with only 2GB of ram, I will upgrade to 8GB or more shortly. Let me know what you suggest!

thank you

[root@D18634 log]# top | grep 'httpd' 11315 apache 15 0 362m 82m 24m R 12.3 4.1 0:03.00 httpd 11310 apache 16 0 322m 41m 21m S 5.7 2.1 0:02.98 httpd 11315 apache 15 0 362m 83m 25m S 24.3 4.1 0:03.73 httpd 11319 apache 16 0 324m 42m 20m R 1.0 2.1 0:01.85 httpd 11319 apache 16 0 362m 82m 23m R 78.5 4.1 0:04.21 httpd 11321 apache 16 0 323m 44m 23m S 35.3 2.2 0:04.13 httpd 11319 apache 15 0 361m 82m 23m S 8.3 4.1 0:04.46 httpd 11321 apache 15 0 323m 44m 23m S 35.9 2.2 0:05.21 httpd 11313 apache 15 0 324m 41m 19m S 48.6 2.1 0:03.23 httpd 11322 apache 16 0 354m 72m 20m R 11.0 3.6 0:05.11 httpd 11322 apache 16 0 354m 72m 20m S 23.9 3.6 0:05.83 httpd 11314 apache 16 0 355m 75m 22m R 18.3 3.7 0:04.64 httpd
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Yout are correct - 82MB of physical ram is being used by one apache process. The second memory column in your top(1) output is the resident size. That's the amount of physical memory that each process is actually consuming. Looks like each apache process on your system is consuming about 41-82MB of RAM. Look at your apache configuration (/etc/httpd/httpd.conf likely) and check the MaxClients directive - that's the maximum number of workers that apache will try to spawn. Multiply that by 82MB for a worst case scenario of how much physical memory apache will try to use. If that is a larger number than your installed system memory, you will exhaust the memory on your system under heavy apache load.

Here's a decent description of some apache tuning tips that might be helpful.

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  • Does that Apache process of 82MB include loading pages/html/images/php and MySQL? It's all on the same server. Or is MySQL RAM/CPU usage 100% separate from the apache RAM usage? Commented Jan 11, 2011 at 7:54
  • It does include php, because that operates as a module inside apache. It does not include mysql, that runs as a separate process. Commented Jan 11, 2011 at 7:55

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