Return-Path: Delivered-To: new-httpd-archive@hyperreal.org Received: (qmail 28429 invoked by uid 6000); 28 May 1998 03:47:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 28421 invoked from network); 28 May 1998 03:47:21 -0000 Received: from ns2.remulak.net (HELO Mail.Golux.Com) (coar@198.115.138.27) by taz.hyperreal.org with SMTP; 28 May 1998 03:47:21 -0000 Received: (from coar@localhost) by Mail.Golux.Com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id XAA12906; Wed, 27 May 1998 23:45:42 -0400 Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 23:45:42 -0400 Message-Id: <199805280345.XAA12906@Mail.Golux.Com> From: Rodent of Unusual Size To: Apache HTTP developers Subject: [STATUS] (apache-2.0) Wed May 27 23:45:41 EDT 1998 X-Note: This is an automated message. Sender: new-httpd-owner@apache.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: new-httpd@apache.org Apache 2.0 STATUS: Release: 2.0 : In pre-alpha development Plan: Everyone with plans on things they want to do for 2.0 should add them to the repository now. Use a descriptive filename. Other code will be copied over when 1.3.0 is finished. Showstoppers: Committed Code Changes: Available Patches: In progress: Needs patch: Open issues: * Library of routines to allow access to memory shared between processes, for things like per-module caches. Such shared segments should persist until the refcount drops to zero. It would be cool if pools could be created in such segments to allow things like shared tables and arrays. +1: Roy, Paul, Ken, Ralf, Martin * "Apache ports" project - simple-to-install (a la CPAN) one-off tools, scripts (such as counters, guest books, et cetera) +1: Roy, Paul, Ken, Ralf, Martin * Improve mod_include SSI handling, perhaps by caching offsets to directives. Also, clean up the conditional syntax to allow formats that bear a faint resemblance to other usages (such as allowing "=~" and "!~") in other "languages." +1: Roy, Ken, Martin Martin sez: I've been thinking about replacing the parser by a recursive descent parser which would reduce complexity tremendously. * Apache reusable code library, wherein we can put some of the stuff developed during the HTTP project that would be useful elsewhere. We've got a start on this with libap, but it would be really cool to have things like the arrays, tables, pools, and related primitives moved into a library of which httpd is just a client and other things can be too. +1: Roy, Paul, Jim, Ken, Ralf, Martin * Replace the current Unix compilation model (Configuration.tmpl, home-brew Configure script) with the "autoconf toolset". +1: Brian, Roy, Dean, Ralf, Martin * Investigate replacing the current Unix compilation model (Configuration.tmpl home-brew Configure script) with the "autoconf toolset". (this varies from the above such that if it's shown that the "autoconf toolset" can do what we want, with less headache than what we have, then we go for it) +1: Jim, Ken, Marc, MarkC, Ben, Paul, Martin * The "autoconf toolset" should include all three: autoconf, automake, and libtool. +1: Brian, Jim, Roy, Dean, Ken, Ralf, Martin * Whatever we do regarding autoconf, we should be able to configure to build objects other than in the source tree. autoconf allows for this... you can do "mkdir obj; cd obj; ../configure". This is great for multiple platforms... or even on a single platform, one copy with profiling another without. (There are a lot of possibilities: creating shadow trees, VPATH-style Makefile settings, etc.) +1: Dean, Roy, Paul, Ralf, Martin * One of the main restrictions on Apache has been that we must assume a very low-level common denominator for the OSs out there. For example, Configure is always being derided as crappy, but it is restricted, by long tradition and common sense, to only use those capabilities that existed in the System 7 'sh' (eg: no function, etc...). One possible key to Apache's success is that it does not require any more than basic UNIX tools (and an ANSI C compiler) to build, compile and run. Many of the ideas floating around for 2.0 would, by default, (drastically) change this. Is this a good idea? [Roy: That overstates most of the changes proposed so far. In any case, older systems will continue to be supported by older versions of Apache -- it is not desirable to dull the cutting edge just so people nowhere near the cutting edge won't get cut.] FEATURE SET FOR 2.0 Here, we decide how many of the following feature ideas we will set for ourselves as work items for 2.0. We can't do everything we would want to, otherwise 2.0 will never be released. So please try and be conservative with your votes. Items in no particular order. Feel free to add more, but try not to duplicate earlier items too much. [Roy: The amount of time it will take to complete 2.0 will have very little to do with how much change is attempted --- it depends only on how many people can change things simultaneously, and thus many suggested changes will actually speed-up the overall schedule if they can help parallelize development or simplify the core code.] * multithreading. +1: Brian, Ken, Jim, Paul, Sameer, Marc, Ralf, MarkC, Ben, Martin, Roy o Thread Abstraction +1: Sameer, Marc, MarkC, Ben, Dean, Paul, Martin, Roy, Ralf Status: nobody has volunteered yet * revamped process model (Dean's proposal) Dean says: it's hard to do the multithreading work cleanly without considering a bunch of this +1: MarkC, Paul, Dean, Martin, Roy, Ralf Marc (+1 on much of it; threads aren't enough for perf.), Status: nobody has volunteered yet * new layered I/O. +1: Brian, Ken, Dean, Jim, Paul, Sameer, Marc, Ralf, MarkC, Ben, Roy Status: Ken has volunteered. o sfio -1: Dean [until it's shown to be thread safe (RST claims it isn't)] o bstdio This was written by Chris Provenzano as part of his implementation of Posix threads. o page flipping friendly, page-sized buffer oriented, zero copy I/O (In this model there are functions like readbuf() which return a pointer to a buffer, rather than taking a pointer to a buffer. This is a lot like how kernels actually work. The advantage is that you can get zero-copy in the user space, which is a big win for caching modules of all sorts. You can also support the "traditional" slow style of stdio, which adds an extra user space copy.) [Martin: Is there some software flying around where such a model has been tried? Or is it a totally new technique?] [Roy: I did this type of buffer streams for libwww-ada95. The only problem is reclaiming buffers so that a large SSI won't suck up all available memory just sending it out the pipe.] +1: Dean, Marc, Ben, Paul, Martin, Roy +0: Jim [what about examples? Portability concerns?], Ralf o NSPR: Sameer thinks that we should evaluate NSPR (ns/nspr in the Mozilla source tree) and determine whether or not it sucks and decide if we can integrate it. It appears to me, from reading the NPL, that including NSPR in Apache 2.0 is legit. Vote +1 if you like NSPR, and want to use it. +1: +0: Sameer * API work o radically revamped API [Roy: presumably there is a goal in mind here?] +1: Ken Status: Ken has volunteered. o documented API [mom and apple pie] +1: Ken, Sameer, Marc, Ralf, Paul, Dean, Martin, Jim, Roy Status: Ken has volunteered. o just new API phases +1: Brian, Jim, Sameer (just the "gaping holes"), Ralf (especially url2url and file2file in addition to url2file) -1: Roy [that is what 1.4 would be like] Status: Ken has volunteered o change API 'phase' model to use module-registered hooks rather than a fixed static structure +1: Ken, Ralf, MarkC, Paul, Dean, Roy, Martin Status: Ken has volunteered o use virtual functions for module hooks +1: Ben -1: Paul, Roy [would require two APIs] o clearly identify API functions by renaming them +1: Ken, Ralf, Ben, Paul (plus back compat.), Dean, Jim, Roy, Martin Status: Ken has volunteered [Roy: looks like it is already in 1.3] o backward compatibility with 1.3 (just require a recompile) if functions get renamed, old names retained as wrappers +1: Paul, Sameer, Marc, MarkC -1: Roy, Ralf, Martin o make API call syntax rational (e.g., all r*() routines list r as their first argument, et cetera) +1: Ken +0: Ralf, Paul, Dean, Martin, Roy Status: Ken has volunteered o abstract module layering for plugins (e.g., a mod_auth interface into which mod_auth_mumble modules can be plugged) +1: Ken, Martin, Ralf +0: Roy [needs more detailed proposal] Status: Ken has volunteered * new configuration language +1: Dean, Marc, Ben, Martin, Roy +0: Ralf, Paul Status: Ken has volunteered o use XML +0: Roy, Ralf * rewrite in C++ +1: Ben, Martin +0: Marc, Ralf -1: MarkC, Paul, Roy, Ken * make everything C++ friendly +1: Roy, Paul, Ken, Ralf, Martin Status: nobody has volunteered yet ("that damned pool decl" is fixed now) * Proxy enhancements (or drop proxy altogether?) for HTTP/1.1 and better ftp proxy Auth handling +1: Martin Closed issues: