why are there so many processes started by apache??

apache 819 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 820 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 821 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 822 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 823 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 824 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 825 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd
apache 826 0.0 2.1 17908 8064 ? S 20:10 0:00 /usr/sbin/httpd

Thanks!

should be normal, apache starts a handful by default. While necessary in thier design, these processes have been viewed as a deterrent to some when evaluating apache. As users hit your site, the number of processes will increase dramatically. But, for a low volume site, this should not be an issue. Also note, they are not "comsuming many resources" so to speak... but, when i tested it on my server on my lan, 2 hits added about 6 processes.

You can edit the amount that startup initially and the amount of connections your site can simultaneously serve out, etc in your httpd.conf file. The file is very well documented and it explains each configuration usually very well.

Regards.

what are they for though? What can't be accomplished by only one process?

That depends on how busy your website is. A less busy website can run fewer processes. Since a process can handle only so many web requests, it's nice to have a few spares already running. If you are using the prefork MPM, you can configure this with StartServers, MinSpareServers, and MaxSpareServers.