Apache suddenly started to do High load help!

[bsasninja]

I´m having a issue, load start to grow up from 10 to above.
Memory free is fine, seems that cpu is working a lot.

I found four httpd process with 58MB of RES size. All the other httpd process are 30mb + or -.

15645 nobody 17 0 69448 57m 2688 R 51 1.6 0:08.57 httpd

lsof -p 15645

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
httpd 15645 nobody cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
httpd 15645 nobody rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
httpd 15645 nobody txt REG 8,3 656317 375424 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 804212 424165 /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.3
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 208403 424344 /usr/lib/libmhash.so.2.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 388387 424212 /usr/lib/libmcrypt.so.4.4.7
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 24588 424327 /usr/lib/libltdl.so.3.1.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 440484 424163 /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6.3.7
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 7030 375429 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_bwlimited.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 7447 375430 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_log_bytes.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 9378 373216 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_expires.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 1955740 424243 /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.so.14.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 60720 278359 /usr/X11R6/lib/libXpm.so.4.11
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 144172 424653 /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0.1.2.7
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 826025 424381 /usr/lib/libcurl.so.3.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 53476 278348 /usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6.4
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 7174 375431 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_auth_passthrough.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 10112 619103 /usr/local/Zend/lib/ZendExtensionManager.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 105048 375753 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_security.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 136016 424581 /usr/lib/libk5crypto.so.3.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 415188 424686 /usr/lib/libkrb5.so.3.2
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 941024 144026 /lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.7a
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 82944 424782 /usr/lib/libgssapi_krb5.so.2.2
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 213600 144047 /lib/libssl.so.0.9.7a
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 913020 276068 /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6.2
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 7186817 373936 /usr/local/apache/libexec/libphp4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 47404 144071 /lib/libnss_files-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 59304 374224 /usr/local/apache/libexec/mod_rewrite.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 112168 144045 /lib/ld-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 1529204 144129 /lib/tls/libc-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 16732 144163 /lib/libdl-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 213772 144140 /lib/tls/libm-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 28476 145355 /lib/libcrypt-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 63624 424218 /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.1.2
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 40108 144143 /lib/libgcc_s-3.4.6-20060404.so.1
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 7004 145395 /lib/libcom_err.so.2.1
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 23616 424357 /usr/lib/libgdbm.so.2.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 97120 144155 /lib/libnsl-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 81120 145366 /lib/libresolv-2.3.4.so
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 60140 145330 /lib/libaudit.so.0.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 119320 424643 /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62.0.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 123496 424380 /usr/lib/libexpat.so.0.5.0
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,5 32024 145338 /lib/libpam.so.0.77
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 980800 636230 /usr/local/Zend/lib/Optimizer-3.3.0/php-4.4.x/ZendOptimizer.so
httpd 15645 nobody DEL REG 0,6 13795329 /SYSV00000000
httpd 15645 nobody DEL REG 0,6 13762560 /SYSV00000000
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 48520608 424222 /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
httpd 15645 nobody mem REG 8,3 21544 454464 /usr/lib/gconv/gconv-modules.cache
httpd 15645 nobody 0r CHR 1,3 1668 /dev/null
httpd 15645 nobody 1w CHR 1,3 1668 /dev/null
httpd 15645 nobody 2w REG 8,3 209488693 376362 /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
httpd 15645 nobody 4u REG 8,7 0 644 /tmp/ZCUDoAitMb (deleted)
httpd 15645 nobody 15w REG 8,3 10944 375038 /usr/local/apache/logs/audit_log
httpd 15645 nobody 16w REG 8,3 0 375039 /usr/local/apache/logs/modsec_debug_log
httpd 15645 nobody 17w REG 8,3 209488693 376362 /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log
httpd 15645 nobody 18u IPv4 181831870 TCP *:https (LISTEN)
httpd 15645 nobody 19u IPv4 181831871 TCP *:http (LISTEN)

And below this all the apache domlogs. I checked /etc/httpd/logs and error_log size is 201MB.

What could be causing the load??????????

[gribozavr]

Load doesn't depend on RAM.

Load average is the average number of processes in the run queue during last X minutes, where X can be 1, 5 or 15. That is, load average is the number of processes which want to run their code on the CPU right now.

High load average can be caused by anything -- apache, exim, spamd, runaway or malicious users processes etc. Though I can't say that 10 is a high load average. If it grows to 20 or 30 and doesn't drop, then there is a reason to look into it further.