Anyone else have this problem?

[rhood]

We seem to have an issue where CPanel servers sometimes lock up, but still respond to pings. These are not overloaded servers at all, and it does not happen often; for example it might happen to one server for the first time this year, another server might have had this issue for the third time this year, a couple of other servers might never have had it.

Looking at logs and loads while it happens, it seems that the way CPanel configures Apache it is possible for scripts to take down the entire server.

Basically I was wondering if anyone else is having the same issue (again it does not happen often and has not happened at all on most servers), and if so do you have any fixes for this?

cPanel.net Support Ticket Number: CPanel server locks up, but still responding to pings

 

[Tim Greer]

This doesn't sounds like a Cpanel problem. Try setting global Rlimit*'s and if you are willing, enable SuEXEC and the SuEXEC (CGI) patch for PHP. Then you can set per-Vhost RLimit* directives to at least limit the processes, CPU and memory usage, etc. to keep the server from going down (assuming this is caused by rouge CGI or PHP processes). Cpanel does not implement per Vhost Rlimit* directives, this is something you will have to do. The directives globally will serve a better purpose than none at all, at least, so consider one of them.