Message-Id: <m0sbA8o-0003pVC@cass39.ast.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 95 18:21 BST
From: drtr@ast.cam.ac.uk (David Robinson)
To: new-httpd@hyperreal.com
Subject: Re: Redirect in .htaccess files?
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>From: Chuck Murcko <chuck@telebase.com>
>Date: Tue, 25 Jul 1995 13:50:08 -0400 (EDT)
>
>...
>StartServers is then the number of servers started, and also the number of
>servers sleeping on a quiescent system.
>
>MaxServers is then an upper limit on total number of long-lived (but not
>permanent) servers that can be forked as load increases. It could also be
>the sum of StartServers and long-lived servers, as it is now. These
>servers would have a configurable lifetime (time-to-sleep parameter).
>
>AbsMaxServers (or something like that) could be servers with either a fixed
>or configurable, and presumably much shorter, time-to-sleep, or could retain
>the current forking behavior, handling one connect each. This would replace
>the hardwired 150 child limit.
>...

This is all way too complicated for the user. There only needs to be one
parameter, which supplies the functionality of MaxServers, but is called
something like FreeServers.

With the apache model, having StartServers > 1 is a waste of time.
It's simpler to set FreeServers to 5 if you want 5 servers right away.

I have yet to be convinced that AbsMaxServers is needed for load throttling,
rather than relying on the limited CPU.

So:
* StartServers and AbsMAxServers are #defines, set to 1 and 100 (say)
  respectively.

* Rename MaxServers as FreeServers.

 David.