FreeBSD 5.2.1: Mutex/Spinlock starvation?

[Ali Niknam]

Hi Alexander,

> I can't say anything as how the issue can be connected with the
> mutexes and so on, but to solve your problem with apache, I'd look
> into 'hold_off_on_exponential_spawning' and 'MAX_SPAWN_RATE'
> parameters in src/main/http_main.c of the apache source tree
> (presuming you're using apache 1.3.*), and I'm sure some similar
> options can be found for apache
> 2.0. What you need is to make apache forking rate more slower, so the
> server will not suffer from a sudden load peak.

That was my first thought exactly! I halved the MAX_SPAWN_RATE to 16 (from
32) and then *exactly* the same thing happened; it only took a minute longer
to happen ....

If i recall correctly (not sure anymore since it was middle of the night)
other processes also got blocked (hence i couldnt use keyboard anymore).

That was why i figured it was some kind of lock/block/mutex/whatever inside
the kernel....

Best Regards,
Ali Niknam