Mass HTTP GET => 500 internal server error

[deltatsunami]

Allright, hello to you all.

I recently was experimenting with a download script, you know, the ones that record how many times that a file has been downloaded. I was bored one day, and I decided to make a mass "downloader" by just sending an HTTP GET for the download link:

GET /download.php?id=1 HTTP/1.0

I noticed that this particular script increments it even if the file had not finished downloading, so I just did a closesocket() right after I sent that string.

I looped it in a forever while loop, and I watched the "downloads" grow steadily. Since most computers are multicore right now, I decided to add threads to the program. I created about 10 threads of just download requests, but instead of incrementing the download, when I try to access the website, it gives me a 500 internal server error.

This particular website was hosted with HostGator (not mine). I looked around for a similar download script and tried it on the other server; the downloads grew exponentially but there was no 500 internal server error.

I am planning to set up a download script, and I just wanted to know how I should configure my server (if any way) so that mass HTTP GET requests would not DoS my server.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.