Re: Looking for new apache maintainer

[Andrew DeFaria <Andrew at DeFaria dot com>]

Brian Dessent wrote:

> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>
> > My understanding is that the Cygwin port of Apache 1.x is also 
> > significantly slower than the native Apache 1.x but this didn't stop 
> > people from wanting a Cygwin version of 1.x. Or is there something in 
> > 2.x (this thread MPM thing) that would make a Cygwin port of Apache 
> > 2.x much, much slower than the native one?
>
> You're correct that 1.x also suffers a performance penalty compared to 
> the native win32 version. However 1.x can only operate in the prefork 
> mode which is not suitable to Windows since process creation is 
> relatively expensive. 

When you start Apache you can specify how many subprocesses to run. Thus 
start up can be expensive. And I know that Apache will start new 
processes if need be - presumably if you have a lot of hits. But for us 
relatively low hit guys I think we can live with the once in a while 
[re]startup costs of Apache and the occasional additional sluggishness 
when Apache needs to allocate another subprocess on those rare times 
when our site is getting a lot of hits.

> Thus both versions are pokey. However, with the advent of 2.x the 
> method of allocating workers is modular (the MPM) and so you can 
> choose to have them as threads or as the old prefork style, among 
> others. With threads the performance under Windows is much improved. I 
> suspect (but have not tested) that the Cygwin overhead
> would be even more apparent in that case, because 2.x has been 
> specifically designed to get good performance under win32 natively, 
> whereas 1.x was never intended for such systems.

Would you suspect that you could get Apache 2.x to use threads under Cygwin?

> As far as I know the popularity of Cygwin Apache is for developing and 
> testing web applications that will eventually reside on unix servers.  
> In that department 1.x is more popular by a huge margin due to its 
> stability, known quirks, and ability to work well with non-thread-safe 
> PHP extensions (as well as general stubbornness of sysadmins who avoid 
> 2.x.) 

Win 98 is still wildly more popular than NT+ versions. People are slow 
and reluctant to change. That shouldn't stop progress though IMHO.

> Thus demand for 1.x/Cygwin should naturally be much higher as well. If 
> you're actually interested in running a server then the native version 
> is probably better.

'Cept for ease of configuration (OK, it's not that more difficult in the 
native version) and the part I like, the ability to symlink things which 
the native version lacks.

I had run my site on XP using Cygwin and Apache. For a while I ran the 
native version. Then switched to the Cygwin version, then eventually to 
the native version to use 2.x. Then I got a Linux box and stuck a 200 
Gig drive in it. The pull of having that much web space available and 
reliability of Linux and my just feeling more comfortable with the 
Unix/Linux environment made it a natural decision to migrate to Linux 
and use Apache 2.x there so that's what I have now. And with it I've 
been able to configure mod_php (and prefer that environment my web 
development) and even WebDAV which I use in conjunction with Mozilla's 
remote calenders as well as use some Linux/PHP style web apps like 
Gallery and MovableType effortlessly.

But often, at work, the client has only Windows boxes. The ability to 
install Cygwin and get Apache running on Cygwin allows me to quickly 
develop useful web apps and other things for the client, often amazing 
them that their Windows boxes can do such things! Hence my interest in 
getting Apache and mod_php working under Cygwin again and having a 2.x 
environment would be best as it closely emulates my home environment 
where I often work out ideas, etc. Alas my current client has become 
pigheaded and has disallowed the usage of "unauthorized" software such 
as Cygwin so currently I'm stuck. But I'm hoping that will change.

> > BTW: Thanks for volunteering for this. Does this mean that a Cygwin 
> > version of mod_php would be working again?
>
> Yes, I intend to do that.

Cool!
--
I wrote a song, but I can't read music. Every time I hear a new song on 
the radio I think "Hey, maybe I wrote that."


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