Limit httpd processes because of high load averages

[patriothosting]

I was wondering if it is possible to limit the number of httpd processes running ether on the entire server or per user, I have one user in particular who uses a lot.

Here is a high load warning email I received a week or so ago that shows my distress, the server went over 525 load average for 15 minutes:

http://www.alternativecomp.com/email.txt

Help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[brendanrtg]

For global, you need to edit:

/usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf

[Spiral]

1 Min Load Avg: 217.32
5 Min Load Avg: 452.38
15 Min Load Avg: 525.55

Holy $@!$% !!!!! I would be suspending that user's account ASAP!

At those load levels, all your clients are going to have the performance
of their hosting accounts very negatively impacted!

From the look of the report, it looks like the user is possibly running
some sort of game server with high traffic which is NEVER a good idea
in any kind of shared hosting environment.

Something like that is far better suited for it's own dedicated server.

If you need any assistance analyzing a bit more detailed what
exactly this user is doing, I'd be glad to give you a hand with that.

[patriothosting]

If you could please find out what exactly he is doing to make it go so high, I mean he is running a web based game but that doesn't constitute that high of load on a AMD Athlon 2500+