Attempting to debug MySQL Too Many Connections error

Web Search Notes

B.1.2.7. Too many connections
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/too-many-connections.html

Error: Too many connections
http://forum.mamboserver.com/showthread.php?t=9732
http://forum.mamboserver.com/archive/index.php/t-9732.html

MySQL Forums :: InnoDB :: Timeout error occurred trying to restart MySQL Daemon.
http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?22,199072,199072

MySQL: ERROR 1040: Too many connections
http://rackerhacker.com/2008/06/24/mysql-error-1040-too-many-connections/

Information from top:

top - 10:38:50 up 422 days, 13:30, 2 users, load average: 30.96, 23.70, 25.72
Tasks: 391 total, 1 running, 331 sleeping, 0 stopped, 59 zombie
Cpu(s): 0.0%us, 33.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 66.7%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1035736k total, 1023664k used, 12072k free, 5440k buffers
Swap: 2650684k total, 1315284k used, 1335400k free, 39572k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
12816 ben 16 0 2500 1268 800 R 64 0.1 0:01.95 top
1 root 15 0 1852 108 88 S 0 0.0 0:37.65 init
2 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:02.12 migration/0
3 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.19 ksoftirqd/0
4 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 3:31.18 migration/1
5 root 34 19 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.34 ksoftirqd/1
6 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.02 events/0
7 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 events/1
8 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
9 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kthread
13 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.83 kblockd/0
14 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:01.70 kblockd/1
15 root 15 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kacpid
130 root 10 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 kseriod
176 root 18 -5 0 0 0 D 0 0.0 2:52.76 kswapd0
177 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/0
178 root 13 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 aio/1
334 root 15 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.06 kirqd
653 root 11 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 khubd
687 root 19 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata/0
688 root 20 -5 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.00 ata/1

Did any of this possibly shut the MySQL server down?

ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart

Password:
Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld failed!
Starting MySQL database server: mysqld already running.
/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'

ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ /usr/sbin/mysqld

080821 11:49:38 [Warning] Can't create test file /var/lib/mysql/server.lower-test
080821 11:49:38 [Warning] Can't create test file /var/lib/mysql/server.lower-test
080821 11:49:38 [Warning] One can only use the --user switch if running as root

/usr/sbin/mysqld: File '/var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.index' not found (Errcode: 13)
080821 11:49:38 [ERROR] Aborting

080821 11:49:38 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ ps

PID TTY TIME CMD
13674 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
14418 pts/1 00:00:00 ps
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo /etc/init.d/mysql restart
Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld failed!
Starting MySQL database server: mysqld already running.
/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ vi /etc/mysql/
conf.d/ debian.cnf debian-start my.cnf
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ vi /etc/mysql/debian.cnf
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo /usr/sbin/mysql stop
sudo: /usr/sbin/mysql: command not found
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo /usr/sbin/mysql
mysqld mysqlmanager
ben@server:/var/log/apache2$ sudo /usr/sbin/mysqlmanager
080821 11:54:07 You are running mysqlmanager as root! This might introduce security problems. It is safer to use --user option istead.

080821 11:54:07 [WARNING] can't open password file /etc/mysqlmanager.passwd: errno=2, No such file or directory
080821 11:54:07 IM pid file: '/var/lib/mysql/mysqlmanager.pid'; PID: 14566.
080821 11:54:07 accepting connections on ip socket (port: 2273)
080821 11:54:07 accepting connections on unix socket '/tmp/mysqlmanager.sock'
080821 11:54:07 guardian: instance 'mysqld' is running, set state to STARTED.

080821 11:55:58 Listener_thread::run(): shutdown requested, exiting...

The "Fix":
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 start

After working again:
sudo tail -f /var/log/apache2/access.log
Showed all the usual 200s and 302s.

The stuff here:

-sh-3.1$ sudo tail /etc/httpd/logs/error_log

Is two days old.

Resolution