[olug] Apache on VPS chewing through memory

[T. J. Brumfield]

I've got a test Apache install on a VPS for a new site I'm developing. I
ended up not sticking with Apache 2.4 because there is no PHP modules for
it in Debian experimental at the moment. I'm using Apache 2.2 from Debian
stable. The site isn't getting hardly any traffic yet other than myself
putting in some content (through Wordpress) and Google crawling the site.
Yet, at least once a day I fully run out of memory on a 2 GB VPS.

Apache has several processes running, each eating up about 500MB of memory,
consuming all physical and virtual memory to the point that I can't even
kill the process and reboot. I'm not seeing excess traffic. What is the
best way to determine why Apache is chewing through memory?

-- T. J. Brumfield
"I'm questioning my education
Rewind and what does it show?
Could be, the truth it becomes you
I'm a seed, wondering why it grows"
-- Pearl Jam, Education