Apache process cause huge load

Hello !

I have a problem with an apache process that is causing huge load. It starts from time to time - I'm not sure what is making it start beacause there's nothing in cron, but it appears every few minutes - and when it starts is uses a lot of RAM (up to 1.3GB) and create a huge load on server, up to 70 (from 0.5-1.5 which is the average). If I don't kill the processes immediatly it blocks the server. Another interesting thing that I observed is that it starts 2 or 3 paralell processes.

On strace I get the following result:

Process 14808 attached - interrupt to quit
write(3, "ffb\r\n\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&="..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&="..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&="..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n&=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3, "ffb\r\n=\n&\n&=\n&\n&\n&=\n&\n&=\n&=\n&\n&\n&"..., 4098) = 4098
write(3

On lsof it shows me that it opens a lot (all, I guess) of files from /usr/local/apache/domlogs.

Does anyone has any idee what the cause may be ?

Hi, when you say apache process, how exactly did you know it's apache process - is it named "httpd" ? If yes, try to use "pstree" and trace it back. You also said : domlogs - what is that ? I tried googling for it, nothing relevant came up, the only common pattern was "cpanel". Could this be a process that is trying to clean big log files ? What access do you have to this server - root, user ?