title: Apache spawning zombie processes when php is called
body: <p>I have a site which has been built in modx and when its hit with load uses up all cpu processing power and top is showing a lot of defunct php zombie processes consuming this.</p>
  
  <p>Here's the system specs...<br>
  PHP 5.2.14<br>
  php running as suPHP<br>
  Mysql    5.1.51<br>
  Apache 2.0.63<br>
  modx 1.0.4</p>
  
  <p>For testing im using ApacheBench and simulating 500 connections with 100 concurrent connections</p>
  
  <p>I've tested this out 2 ways now...</p>
  
  <p>Turning off .htaccess and stress testing a simple php page that just echoes 'Hello world'.<br>
  In top this shows php going defunct and turning into a zombie but they go away pretty quickly</p>
  
  <p>Calling a page served by modx, where php is doing a lot more, spawns more zombies that eat more cpu and some of them dont go away quickly.</p>
  
  <p>What would be causing this? Would it be a mistake in our code - in which case why does the simple Hello World script spawn zombies?</p>
  
  <p>Is it some problem with server config or with putting too much load on the server?</p>
  
  <p>Scratching my head about this all now and hoping for some pointers as to what to do next.</p>