home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <?xml version="1.0"?>
- <!DOCTYPE modulesynopsis SYSTEM "../style/modulesynopsis.dtd">
- <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="../style/manual.en.xsl"?>
- <!-- $Revision: 1.8.2.10 $ -->
-
- <!--
- Copyright 2002-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
-
- Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
- you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
- You may obtain a copy of the License at
-
- http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-
- Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
- distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
- WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
- See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
- limitations under the License.
- -->
-
- <modulesynopsis metafile="worker.xml.meta">
- <name>worker</name>
- <description>Multi-Processing Module implementing a hybrid
- multi-threaded multi-process web server</description>
- <status>MPM</status>
- <sourcefile>worker.c</sourcefile>
- <identifier>mpm_worker_module</identifier>
-
- <summary>
- <p>This Multi-Processing Module (MPM) implements a hybrid
- multi-process multi-threaded server. By using threads to serve
- requests, it is able to serve a large number of requests with
- less system resources than a process-based server. Yet it
- retains much of the stability of a process-based server by
- keeping multiple processes available, each with many threads.</p>
-
- <p>The most important directives used to control this MPM are
- <directive module="mpm_common">ThreadsPerChild</directive>, which
- controls the number of threads deployed by each child process and
- <directive module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive>, which
- controls the maximum total number of threads that may be
- launched.</p>
- </summary>
- <seealso><a href="../bind.html">Setting which addresses and ports Apache
- uses</a></seealso>
-
- <section id="how-it-works"><title>How it Works</title>
- <p>A single control process (the parent) is responsible for launching
- child processes. Each child process creates a fixed number of server
- threads as specified in the <directive
- module="mpm_common">ThreadsPerChild</directive> directive, as well
- as a listener thread which listens for connections and passes them
- to a server thread for processing when they arrive.</p>
-
- <p>Apache always tries to maintain a pool of <dfn>spare</dfn> or
- idle server threads, which stand ready to serve incoming
- requests. In this way, clients do not need to wait for a new
- threads or processes to be created before their requests can be
- served. The number of processes that will initially launched is
- set by the <directive module="mpm_common">StartServers</directive>
- directive. Then during operation, Apache assesses the total number
- of idle threads in all processes, and forks or kills processes to
- keep this number within the boundaries specified by <directive
- module="mpm_common">MinSpareThreads</directive> and <directive
- module="mpm_common">MaxSpareThreads</directive>. Since this
- process is very self-regulating, it is rarely necessary to modify
- these directives from their default values. The maximum number of
- clients that may be served simultaneously (i.e., the maximum total
- number of threads in all processes) is determined by the
- <directive module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive> directive.
- The maximum number of active child processes is determined by
- the <directive module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive>
- directive divided by the <directive module="mpm_common">
- ThreadsPerChild</directive> directive.</p>
-
- <p>Two directives set hard limits on the number of active child
- processes and the number of server threads in a child process,
- and can only be changed by fully stopping the server and then
- starting it again. <directive module="mpm_common">ServerLimit
- </directive> is a hard limit on the number of active child
- processes, and must be greater than or equal to the
- <directive module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive>
- directive divided by the <directive module="mpm_common">
- ThreadsPerChild</directive> directive.
- <directive module="mpm_common">ThreadLimit</directive> is a hard
- limit of the number of server threads, and must be greater than
- or equal to the <directive
- module="mpm_common">ThreadsPerChild</directive> directive. If
- non-default values are specified for these directives, they
- should appear before other <module>worker</module> directives.</p>
-
- <p>In addition to a the set of active child processes, there may
- be additional child processes which are terminating but where at
- least one server thread is still handling an existing client
- connection. Up to <directive
- module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive> terminating processes
- may be present, though the actual number can be expected to be
- much smaller. This behavior can be avoided by disabling the
- termination of individual child processes, which is achieved by
- the following:</p>
-
- <ul>
- <li>set the value of <directive module="mpm_common">
- MaxRequestsPerChild</directive> to zero</li>
-
- <li>set the value of <directive module="mpm_common">
- MaxSpareThreads</directive> to the same value as
- <directive module="mpm_common">MaxClients</directive></li>
- </ul>
-
- <p>A typical configuration of the process-thread controls in
- the <module>worker</module> MPM could look as follows:</p>
-
- <example>
- ServerLimit 16<br />
- StartServers 2<br />
- MaxClients 150<br />
- MinSpareThreads 25<br />
- MaxSpareThreads 75<br />
- ThreadsPerChild 25
- </example>
-
- <p>While the parent process is usually started as <code>root</code>
- under Unix in order to bind to port 80, the child processes and threads
- are launched by Apache as a less-privileged user. The <directive
- module="mpm_common">User</directive> and <directive
- module="mpm_common">Group</directive> directives are used to set
- the privileges of the Apache child processes. The child processes
- must be able to read all the content that will be served, but
- should have as few privileges beyond that as possible. In
- addition, unless <a href="../suexec.html">suexec</a> is used,
- these directives also set the privileges which will be inherited
- by CGI scripts.</p>
-
- <p><directive module="mpm_common">MaxRequestsPerChild</directive>
- controls how frequently the server recycles processes by killing
- old ones and launching new ones.</p>
- </section>
-
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>AcceptMutex</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>CoreDumpDirectory</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>EnableExceptionHook</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>Group</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>PidFile</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>Listen</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>ListenBacklog</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>LockFile</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>MaxClients</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>MaxMemFree</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>MaxRequestsPerChild</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>MaxSpareThreads</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>MinSpareThreads</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>ScoreBoardFile</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>SendBufferSize</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>ServerLimit</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>StartServers</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>ThreadLimit</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>ThreadsPerChild</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
- <directivesynopsis location="mpm_common"><name>User</name>
- </directivesynopsis>
-
- </modulesynopsis>
-