linux - Apache uses 100% CPU. Can "ps" command tell me what it is doing?

I have a SLES 10 Linux server, and some times it is maxed out by Apache to 100% CPU.

With ps ax can I see, that Apache have spawned ~50 Apache processes.

Can e.g. the ps command tell me what each of these Apache processes are doing?

Or perhaps some other method so I can see what web pages that triggers the problem?

Answer

My /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file has this section:

# Allow server status reports generated by mod_status,

# with the URL of http://servername/server-status
# Change the ".example.com" to match your domain to enable.
#

    SetHandler server-status
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from .example.com
    Allow from 127. 192.168.1.

Thus if I go to http://192.168.1.1/server-status, I get a page that tells me:

1. server version


2. httpd uptime


3. current CPU usage




5. a grid of what each process is doing




6. recent requests

   
   
   

   Apache Server Status for 192.168.3.1

   
   
   

   Server Version: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)
   Server Built: Jul 14 2009 06:04:04

   
   
   

   Current Time: Saturday, 17-Jul-2010 10:20:31 CDT
   Restart Time: Saturday, 17-Jul-2010 10:13:12 CDT
   Parent Server Generation: 0
   Server uptime: 7 minutes 19 seconds
   Total accesses: 51 - Total Traffic: 156 kB
   CPU Usage: u0 s0 cu0 cs0
   .116 requests/sec - 363 B/second - 3132 B/request
   1 requests currently being processed, 7 idle workers

   
   
   

   __W_____........................................................
   ................................................................
   ................................................................
   ................................................................

   
   
   
   

   Scoreboard Key:
   "_" Waiting for Connection, "S" Starting up, "R" Reading Request,
   "W" Sending Reply, "K" Keepalive (read), "D" DNS Lookup,
   "C" Closing connection, "L" Logging, "G" Gracefully finishing,
   "I" Idle cleanup of worker, "." Open slot with no current process

   
   
   

   Srv PID Acc M CPU SS Req Conn Child Slot Client VHost Request
   0-0 20715 0/2/2 _ 0.00 418 0 0.0 0.01 0.01 192.168.3.97 dit GET /server-status HTTP/1.1
   1-0 20716 0/49/49 _ 0.00 128 0 0.0 0.15 0.15 192.168.3.97 dit GET /server-status HTTP/1.1
   2-0 20717 0/0/0 W 0.00 0 520222374 0.0 0.00 0.00 192.168.3.97 dit GET /server-status HTTP/1.1