[tlug] Apache is eating my CPU usage

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

A while back, I reported that every now and again, my CPU would start 
operating at maximum usage, for no reason that I could discern. Details 
of that are here:
http://www.tlug.jp/ML/0705/msg00373.html

There was some good advice on how to diagnose the problem, but I had to 
leave it for a while until I had a moment when the CPU started acting up 
again, and I had the time to sit down and analyze it.

This morning, the CPU fan was running loudly, indicating that sometime 
overnight, the problem had occurred again and was continuing. This time 
made a good test case because last night I had left almost no programs on.

To make a long story short, I went through the commands that were 
suggested last time, and discovered that Apache was the culprit.

Here, you can see a screen shot of my Gnome terminal, running "top":
http://autotelic.com/gnome_terminal_top.png

Apache2 is showing 98.9% usage of my CPU.

Just for interest sake, here is the Gnome system monitor, which is 
showing processes listed by CPU usage, and for some reason Apache isn't 
listed there:
http://autotelic.com/gnome_system_monitor.png

So, I tried:
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

And the result surprised me, because Apache stopped, the CPU usage 
dropped to almost nothing, and then the CPU usage went right back up 
when Apache restarted.

However, if I reboot the machine, Apache automatically starts, and does 
not start eating up CPU usage.

What could Apache be doing that it will continue doing when restarted, 
but not continue doing when the whole system is rebooted?

--
Dave M G
http://www.tlug.jp/wiki/User:Dave_M_G