Question

When I read this thread, I am confused by Vinko Vrsalovic’s reply

At server start you’ll get minspare
processes, which will keep growing
until maxspare (or maxchildren) if
more requests are coming.

Then, what will happen if the the value of maxspare and maxchildren are different? The server’s processes will keep growing until maxspare or maxchildren or anything else?

Here is the given definition of the two terminology in the same reply:

maxspare : Maximum number of spare
processes to keep running
maxchildren:
Hard limit number of processes in
prefork mode

Answer 1

minspare, maxspare limit idle children count.

maxchildren limimt total children.

when the server start, it create minspare children to handle request.

when there is no idle child and a new request come, and current children count < maxchildren, the server create new child to handle this request, otherwise, the request will block.

where a child finish a request, it will check if current idle children count > maxspare, if true, the child will terminate.