I have never come across WeBWorK load causing MariaDB to crash. WeBWorK is much more taxing on apache than the database, so usually if a WW server crashes it is because apache has run it out of memory.
Can you give more details on what happened when MariaDB went down?
In terms of DB connections, generally WW opens one DB connection per apache process, so your MariaDB server needs to be able to handle at least as many connections as you have apache processes (as determined by MaxRequestWorkers in your apache configuration).
Can you give more details on what happened when MariaDB went down?
In terms of DB connections, generally WW opens one DB connection per apache process, so your MariaDB server needs to be able to handle at least as many connections as you have apache processes (as determined by MaxRequestWorkers in your apache configuration).