OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0 in access_log

Question

I am running an internal httpd server that forwards requests to another httpd server. The internal httpd server acts as a proxy and also supports caching. I just upgraded from 2.2.11 to 2.2.25 of httpd. I have the same configuration as before. When an HTTP request comes in, I see several entries (one per second) for OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0 in my access_log. There are no errors in my error_log. What is this new OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0 that I never saw before? My old build used worker.c and this one seems to use prefork.c. I am not sure on the difference. Would this cause it? This is the only difference between my old build and this new build.

These are the modules I am using:

Compiled in modules:
  core.c
  mod_authn_file.c
  mod_authn_default.c
  mod_authz_host.c
  mod_authz_groupfile.c
  mod_authz_user.c
  mod_authz_default.c
  mod_auth_basic.c
  mod_file_cache.c
  mod_cache.c
  mod_disk_cache.c
  mod_mem_cache.c
  mod_ext_filter.c
  mod_include.c
  mod_filter.c
  mod_substitute.c
  mod_log_config.c
  mod_env.c
  mod_expires.c
  mod_setenvif.c
  mod_version.c
  mod_proxy.c
  mod_proxy_connect.c
  mod_proxy_ftp.c
  mod_proxy_http.c
  mod_proxy_scgi.c
  mod_proxy_ajp.c
  mod_proxy_balancer.c
  prefork.c
  http_core.c
  mod_mime.c
  mod_status.c
  mod_autoindex.c
  mod_asis.c
  mod_info.c
  mod_cgid.c
  mod_negotiation.c
  mod_dir.c
  mod_actions.c
  mod_userdir.c
  mod_alias.c
  mod_rewrite.c
  mod_so.c

The access_log:

::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:34 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:35 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:36 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:37 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:38 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:39 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:40 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:41 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:42 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:43 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:44 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:45 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:46 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:47 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:48 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:49 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:50 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:51 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:52 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:53 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:54 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:55 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:56 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:57 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:58 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -
::1 - - [02/Oct/2013:13:30:59 -0400] "OPTIONS * HTTP/1.0" 200 -

Solution

These are internal dummy connections - see here.

Their appearance is due to your change of MPM from worker to prefork. You don't need to worry about them, but unless you have a reason to use prefork then you should probably be on worker.

Comments

[Albert]

This worked! Thank you.. Now on my httpd instance, I had to set ulimit -s 512 in my envvars under bin. I never had to set this before. The reason I had to set it was because I was getting an error trying allocate resources when I would start httpd. Any idea why now I have to set this? Maybe my ulimits were set to unlimited in my OS?

[ravi yarlagadda]

@0A0D Yeah, that's strange - have you customized any ulimit settings elsewhere? The default limits should easily be high enough for startup of the service without error..