Resource temporarily unavailable: couldn't spawn child process: /vol/www/cgi-bin/phcgi/phcgi.exe

[Hr. G. Dirkzwager]

Hello,

does anybody had a problem like this also? I don't know what to do anymore. When this appears in the log files the users get an cgi time out error or a internal server error...

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Hi,
Tellus more about your Server OS , WebServer , and the setup.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Stefan Farrelly]

Seen it before, its a resource problem. Check you have the following kernel parameters set high enough;
nproc
maxuprc

And you have enough swapspace setup and some memory free.

[Hr. G. Dirkzwager]

The server OS is HPux 11 and is running the latest apache 1.3xx version. The users have to log in and after that they get connected to a oracle database. After about 20 minutes and 600 hits the server gives the output as stated earlier. I have:
MinSpareServers 10
MaxSpareServers 20
StartServers 5
MaxClients 250
MaxRequestsPerChild 0

Kernel:
nfile: 2302
nflocks: 800
maxfiles: 1024

Do you need to know more?

[Hr. G. Dirkzwager]

two other setting in the kernel:
nproc: 1044
maxuprc: 75

[U.SivaKumar_2]

Hi,
Increase the value of nproc kernel paramter +200 through
#sam
kernel parameters
it will rebuild the kernel and reboot the server once.

regards,
U.SivaKumar

[Pete Randall]

If you have Glance available to you, look at Reports > System Info > System Tables Report. This will give you a good gauge of what kernel resources are being strained so you can tune appropriately.

Pete

[Hr. G. Dirkzwager]

I don't have glance so i will try to increase the value of the nproc kernel parameter to 1244. Tomorrow i know more about the results.....

Thanks for now.....

[Ralph Grothe]

Have a look at the webserver's error log.
It should reside in the webserver's ServerRoot in a logs subdir (e.g. /opt/apache/logs/error_log)

The "internal server error" is the standard webserver response (500) if something goes wrong and can mean anything.
Always check the webserver's error_log first.
Btw the naming convention phcgi.exe looks pretty windozish to me.
Are you sure the webserver is expected to execute this cgi in a Unix environment?

[Pete Randall]

GlancePlus/UX is available on your Application CD's as a free 30 or 60 day trial. It may be available for download but I'm unable to find a URL for you. In any case, I would strongly recommend that you install it and consider purchasing the permanent license. It is an invaluable tool for diagnosing and tuning your system.

Pete

[Hr. G. Dirkzwager]

The error i described is from the error_log of apache. The phcgi.exe you see is a part of another application, named cognos powerhouseweb. This file is called as a .exe but is also usable on unix. That is not the problem.

I found an application CD with Glance. I will look at that also!

[Ralph Grothe]

Is your webserver's application directly accessing the Apache API (i.e. some mod_php, mod_perl, etc. stuff)
If not carefully coded this could cause some memory leaks.