Help me save my httpd server

Salvador Bosque (srbosque@immd7.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)
Sun, 15 Jan 1995 14:40:55 +0100

A friend of mine has the following problem with his httpd server.
Does anybody out there have a clue how to solve it?

I can't find a server which doesn't crash. So far I'v tried the NCSA
server 1.3 and CERN server 3.0.6.

The bug is as follow.

1. When the server has more than x simultaneous connections. I
receive the message

NIS: server not responding for domain
"yphelios.genie.uottawa.ca"; still trying.

2. When this message is received, the server receives new
connections, but doesn't kill the old ones.

3. After a while (3 minutes), the process table is full and the
machine has to be reseted.

I will try to contact NCSA, and see if they are aware of the
bug. Presently I'm trying to use the CERN server (with DNSLookup
off). But it is lacking the server side include capability of the NCSA
server, the ability to have .cgi scripts everywhere and the ability to
use the description field when showing a directory (which I feel is an
important part of the archive).

Now here is where you could help me. If you know a server that could
easily handle the amount of calls received here each day (around
11000) without going `bezerk' and has a similar functionality then the
one used by NCSA, please send me an e-mail (I'm using a SPARC
sunos4.1.3). I tried the wn server (but it is really not practical for
an archive site), and the EIT server (crashed big time).

My professor told me that if I don't find a way to clear the "exiting"
process and/or not to crash our server, then our httpd server will be
closed.

Hope the www-gurus can figure out something. Maybe it's just one of
this problem with the sun. Do you think that using -lresolve would
change anything ?

I would kindly appreciate any help!

Salvador Bosque