What is httpd??

[zimwy]

Hi,
I was playing around in the terminal (I live on the edge) and I typed top and I have 6 httpd processes running and 4 nfsiod processes running? What are these and why do I need more than one of them?? They have consecutive PID numbers too. Any help??

Thanks,
gabe

[mervTormel]

all is well...

from the UNIX man pages:

% man httpd
...
DESCRIPTION
httpd is the Apache HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
server program. It is designed to be run as a standalone
daemon process. When used like this it will create a pool
of child processes to handle requests. To stop it, send a
TERM signal to the initial (parent) process. The PID of
this process is written to a file as given in the configu-
ration file. Alternatively httpd may be invoked by the
Internet daemon inetd(8) each time a connection to the
HTTP service is made...

% man nfsiod
...
DESCRIPTION
Nfsiod runs on an NFS client machine to service asynchronous I/O requests
to its server. It improves performance but is not required for correct
operation.

Unless otherwise specified, a single server is started.

The options are as follows:

-n Specify how many servers are to be started.

A client should run enough daemons to handle its maximum level of concur-
rency, typically four to six...


note that the nfsiod processes have accrued zero cpu time if they have no requests to service.