Whenever my webserver is receiving too much traffic, the machine bogs down so much I'm unable to even SSH in. Is there a way to throttle down Apache, or somehow limit the amount of system resources it consumes, to allow me to still be able to log in and perform basic tasks, even during high traffic times? I'm pretty sure this is a system resources issue, as opposed to a bandwidth issue, as the load average on the server goes to about 40 when I'm really having problems. In a perfect world, I'd like my server to save just enough resources for me to be able to log in, even when Apache is being worked hard. Is this possible?
You could try setting the maximum servers in apache to lower the resourse useage, or you could try using something like mod_bandwidth or mod_throttle to control the connections on a more granular level.