Apache crashes

[Scott Haneda]

On Oct 8, 2009, at 7:36 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> On Oct 8, 2009, at 19:38, Scott Haneda wrote:
>
>> Just after I get a large group of sites migrated to apache2 on a  
>> new machine, I am seeing this happen in the error log:
>>
>> 36)Operation now in progress: initgroups: unable to set groups for  
>> User www and Group 70
>>
>> Seems to be a bit of info in google about it, related to Mac OS X,  
>> and some in the macports archives about python.
>>
>> Here is the whole deal:
>> $grep 'alert' error_log
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:24 2009] [alert] (22)Invalid argument:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:24 2009] [alert] (22)Invalid argument:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:24 2009] [alert] (22)Invalid argument:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:24 2009] [alert] (22)Invalid argument:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:24 2009] [alert] (22)Invalid argument:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 16:23:25 2009] [alert] Child 13545 returned a Fatal  
>> error... Apache is exiting!
>> [Thu Oct 08 17:29:48 2009] [alert] (36)Operation now in progress:  
>> initgroups: unable to set groups for User www and Group 70
>> [Thu Oct 08 17:29:49 2009] [alert] Child 13782 returned a Fatal  
>> error... Apache is exiting!
>>
>> I was fiddling with rotatelogs in a virtual host container, but  
>> since removed it, and am not using that feature at this time.   
>> Those alerts above came after I restarted apache with a graceful.
>>
>> Suggestions?
>
> What OS is this? If 10.5 or later, the user should be "_www" not  
> "www".
>
> Where does "group 70" come from? That should be "_www" too,  
> shouldn't it?

This is 10.5, PPC
As to www or _www, I was pretty sure the are synonymous...
$touch foo
	-rw-r--r--  1 me  staff    0 Oct  8 20:06 foo
$sudo chown www:www foo
	-rw-r--r--  1 _www    _www     0 Oct  8 20:06 foo
$sudo chown _www:_www foo
	-rw-r--r--  1 _www    _www     0 Oct  8 20:06 foo

No matter what, they always seem to be _www.

Group 70 is:
AppleMetaNodeLocation: /Local/Default
GeneratedUID: ABCDEFAB-CDEF-ABCD-EFAB-CDEF00000046
Password: *
PrimaryGroupID: 70
RealName:
  HTTP Users
RecordName: _www www
RecordType: dsRecTypeNative:groups
SMBSID: S-1-5-21-170

That is built in, I did not make that.  Where is apache deciding to  
set these values from, and why is it only an intermittent error?  The  
default httpd.conf has:
User www
Group www

This thread I just found sheds more light on it:
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/httpd-users/200810.mbox/%3C5249c07e0810091021s77d4f603y50c3fbb20cd4c181@mail.gmail.com%3E

Google searches on this are pretty strongly pointing to 'initgroups',  
which I know nothing about.

According to this:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1495604
I should change the httpd.conf file to _www an _www u/g, though Apache  
should still not crash regardless.  This is not all the time like in  
the above post, I only get it under a condition I can not repeat  
currently.

I have never worked with bug reporting to Apache, do you think this is  
cofig on my end, or worth taking up the chain?
-- 
Scott * If you contact me off list replace talklists@ with scott@ *