ServerLimit and MaxClient issue

Solution 1:

I think you will need to do a stop and start of httpd (so that the "master" httpd process is stopped and started, not just the child processes). From the Apache documentation's entry on ServerLimit:

"Any attempts to change this directive during a restart will be ignored, but MaxClients can be modified during a restart."

Solution 2:

You must actually ensure two things for this to take effect:

• restart apache rather than merely reload
• ensure that ServerLimit comes before MaxClients in the Apache configuration, otherwise Apache will read MaxClients first and produce the same error

There are other very obvious caveats such as ensuring it's not in the wrong place, inside an <If> block that is not read for example.