The other day I was looking for an error in Apache error logs and I noticed an error that was repeated over and over again:

[info] Initial (No.1) HTTPS request received for child 5 (server secure.m2osw.com:443)
[info] Initial (No.1) HTTPS request received for child 0 (server secure.m2osw.com:443)
[info] Initial (No.1) HTTPS request received for child 7 (server secure.m2osw.com:443)
[info] Initial (No.1) HTTPS request received for child 2 (server secure.m2osw.com:443)
[info] Initial (No.1) HTTPS request received for child 4 (server secure.m2osw.com:443)

Notice the pattern? Only one thing changes, the child number. If you look closely, you will notice that this is not an error as it says [info] which means this is just an informative message. Good. But why are all those children receiving HTTPS requests even when I disconnect the network cable??

The fact is that Apache2 sends HTTPS requests to all the children when they have not been used for too long. It does that to make sure that the child doesn't just decide to quit. I don't recall having that in older version. In itself it doesn't matter, but it definitively fills up my log files!