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Today I encounter a serious error in my production server running Debian 3.1 with Apache 1.3, PHP 4.3
Warning: Unknown(/web_sites/doc_root/public_html/index.php): failed to
create stream: Too many open files in Unknown on line 0

The reason is linux limit the max number of opening files to 1024, and my server is hosting more than 500 virtual hosting now, and each of them opened 2 logs. So in total when the hosting is over 512 domains, it’ll reach the limit.
Run this command to see the limit:

linuxvm1:~# ulimit -n
1024

The solution: (I know you like this)
open /usr/sbin/apachectl (or apache2ctl )
add a line to it: ulimit -n 65536
restart apache:
apachectl restart

The problem should been fixed.
If you execute /etc/init.d/apache to restart, it may not work because Debian 3.1 is not using apachectl in /etc/init.d/apache
I’m not sure how to add the ulimit to it yet.

1. cd /etc/apache2/
2. mkdir ssl
3. cd ssl
4. openssl genrsa -out server.key 1024
5. openssl req -new -key server.key -out server.csr
   • type in the information required in this step
6. openssl x509 -req -days 365 -in server.csr -signkey server.key -out server.crt
7. cd /etc/apache2
8. vi ports.conf
   • add Listen 443 into the file and save
9. cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
10. vi ssl, add the following
11. a2enmod ssl
12. a2ensite ssl
13. /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
14. open https://localhost in your browser and accept the key
15. the browser should say: It works!

NameVirtualHost *:443
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/apache2/ssl/server.key
DocumentRoot /var/www/
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
# This directive allows us to have apache2’s default start page
# in /apache2-default/, but still have / go to the right place
RedirectMatch ^/$ /apache2-default/
</Directory>

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
<Directory “/usr/lib/cgi-bin”>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn

CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined
ServerSignature On
</VirtualHost>