I run rh8 on a thinkpad560. No kernel patches or updates, and the apache dist that came with RH. 2.0.x something. It worked like a charm until a little while after I installed Qmail. About 2 weeks after installation, the system was almost inaccessible, didn't answer ssh req:s, http reqs or anything. Console was 'workable' but very slow. So I shut down apache and qmail, when trying to restart apache, the system slowed down again. Shut it down, removed qmail and restored (as far as I know) the system to the same state as before qmail. Apache now starts (after about 20 minutes of thinking) but it's still veeery slow and when apache runs, you can't even connect via ssh. Installed nullhttpd and it works and the machine works nicely as long as apache isn't running. Tried to upgrade the apache package (rpm) but no success... Yes I know there's a slim chance to find a solution but I just might ask anyway.

The interesting thing is that when apache runs, the machine is constantly accessing the harddrive. system load runs about 3-3.5 average but cpu is 92% idle! And no process is hogging either cpu or memory... So something is really messed up but I can't find out what... I'm not out of disk space so that's not the problem..

//Micke

Try running httpd with a higher log setting and make it stay attached to the console - you may get some more information about what is happening.