Return-Path: Delivered-To: new-httpd-archive@hyperreal.org Received: (qmail 5322 invoked by uid 6000); 2 Feb 1998 21:45:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 5316 invoked from network); 2 Feb 1998 21:45:52 -0000 Received: from twinlark.arctic.org (204.62.130.91) by taz.hyperreal.org with SMTP; 2 Feb 1998 21:45:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 1153 invoked by uid 500); 2 Feb 1998 21:57:47 -0000 Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 13:57:47 -0800 (PST) From: Dean Gaudet To: new-httpd@apache.org Subject: Re: apache/linux modules In-Reply-To: Message-ID: X-Comment: Visit http://www.arctic.org/~dgaudet/legal for information regarding copyright and disclaimer. Organization: Transmeta Corp. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: new-httpd-owner@apache.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: new-httpd@apache.org On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Cristian Gafton wrote: > On Mon, 2 Feb 1998, Dean Gaudet wrote: > > > *everywhere* (i.e. never) we have to support the configuration file... and > > even if we could do dynamic loading everywhere, I wouldn't be using it on > > a performance critical server. > > Wait a minute... WHY ?! Why can't you use the dynamic loadable modules on > a performance critical server ? It's the same thing as having apache > linked dynamically against libc... Are you saying that this will slow > things down ? Yes. If you read the perf-tuning docs you'll see that Apache reserves extra memory for dynamic loading, you can save a nice hunk of memory by disabling that (how much depends on your config). Furthermore when I build a performance critical server I tune a lot of *compile-time-only* configurables. So it's nothing much to link in exactly the modules the server will run. > Try to look at this from a distribution maintainer point of view. We'd > like to be able to ship aoache modules for Red Hat systems to include > postgres support, other cool stuff, without having to rebuild the apache > binary package every time... It is not only cool, buty it will make apache > easy to deploy on a lot of other cases (think about products like miniSQL, > mySQL, Solid server, etc, shipping their version of apache module and all > you have to do is to stick it into a directory and apache will start using > it..) Yes this is a great thing, but autoconf is orthogonal to this problem. You essentially just need dynamic loading. If you need more than that then we've messed up... but I don't think we're any worse at dynamic loading than, say, linux kernel modules ;) Every time you build a new kernel for distribution you're stuck building new iBCS, new pcmcia-cs, and whatever other addons you build. Apache is pretty similar this way, if there's been a MODULE_MAGIC_NUMBER increase. > > have the issue of translating all of the apache architecture names to the > > equivalent autoconf names and then debugging the entire mess. Not a small > > job. > > Any volunteers ? :-) I am one. Prepare yourself for lots of discussion! :) Dean