Thanks for your replies... and yes it would be nice to have a bit more documentation regarding this type of scenario in the Prefork or PreforkSimple docs... The entire Net::Server module is very different than what I'm used to using in the way that I had to modularize my program and have it call itself during execution.

So, I actually did go and turn on pid logging after posting this message, and have been watching what's been happening at this point. I've also changed the config file to spawn only one server at a time so I can attempt to see exactly what is happening:

min_servers     1
max_servers     1

max_requests    1000

log_file        /var/log/speak_db_names.log
log_level       3
pid_file        /tmp/speak_db_names.pid
background      1
port            3307
[download]

Here is a current snippet of the logfile:

16265 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:00 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50661" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16265 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:01 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50668" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16265 - Reusing DB Cache 1 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:02 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50673" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16265 - Reusing DB Cache 2 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:03 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35875" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16265 - Reusing DB Cache 3 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:30:06 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50683" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16269 - DB Cache expired: 135784 Seconds Old... Reloading
16269 - Now:  1133382606 Last Upd: 1133246822
2005/11/30-15:30:06 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50687" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16269 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:30:09 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35883" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - DB Cache expired: 135787 Seconds Old... Reloading
16273 - Now:  1133382609 Last Upd: 1133246822
2005/11/30-15:30:10 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35885" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 1 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:10 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35887" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 1 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:12 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35889" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 3 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:13 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35891" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 4 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:14 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.67:50706" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 5 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:15 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35893" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 6 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:30:15 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35895" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16273 - Reusing DB Cache 6 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:30:33 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35897" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16276 - DB Cache expired: 135811 Seconds Old... Reloading
16276 - Now:  1133382633 Last Upd: 1133246822
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:30:58 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35899" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16279 - DB Cache expired: 135836 Seconds Old... Reloading
16279 - Now:  1133382658 Last Upd: 1133246822
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:31:25 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35901" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16282 - DB Cache expired: 135863 Seconds Old... Reloading
16282 - Now:  1133382685 Last Upd: 1133246822
2005/11/30-15:31:26 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35902" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16282 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:31:29 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35904" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16285 - DB Cache expired: 135867 Seconds Old... Reloading
16285 - Now:  1133382689 Last Upd: 1133246822
2005/11/30-15:31:29 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35905" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16285 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
2005/11/30-15:31:37 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35907" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16288 - DB Cache expired: 135875 Seconds Old... Reloading
16288 - Now:  1133382697 Last Upd: 1133246822
2005/11/30-15:31:37 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35909" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16288 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:31:37 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35911" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16288 - Reusing DB Cache 0 Seconds old
2005/11/30-15:31:38 CONNECT TCP Peer: "172.17.10.57:35913" Local: "172
+.17.10.75:3307"
16288 - Reusing DB Cache 1 Seconds old
Starting "1" children
[download]

So I'm still confused. My config file says: spawn one server (min/max) to deal with requests, and serve 1000 requests per server, right? So if you look at the log file, you will see that sometimes on process is used multiple times, but then a child will be spawned, and seemingly the next x number of calls call different child processes, none of which have the updated cache information. I don't mind a single process getting the cache information when it expires, but I don't want them getting it every call, and some of them seem to do so.

Maybe you can see what I'm doing wrong, if anything at all, or maybe explain a bit more to me about what is happening. I've only done a few other programs that fork, and none of them have been a client/server type, so this is a bit new to me, although I think I understand much of the concept.

Thanks