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Is Apache 2.x Ready for General Use?

Posted by Cliff on from the peeking-into-the-oven dept.

Above asks: "In this article we see apache 2.0.45 has been released. Well, I plan on rebuilding my webserver soon, which means installing the "latest" version. However, I'm still on the 1.x train, which is still going strong. As someone who hasn't used 2.x, and hasn't followed the development is it ready for the masses or should I stick with 1.x and be happy? Are mod_perl and ssl (my two requirements) stable? What about all the other things (php et all)? I don't do anything fancy with my web sites, but having them "just work" and not having to upgrade every other day are both strong concerns. What are your experiences?"

14 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Almost... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    But not quite. They're finally starting to get the idea that if they keep breaking external modules each release, no one is going to use it. They're almost to the point where when you download Apache and PHP, you know they'll work together. Give it a few more months.

    1. Re:Almost... by hawkbug · · Score: 2, Informative

      I completely feel your man. I installed Red Hat 8.0, and was insanely ticked to find out that the included RPM for apache 2.0.40 would not work with MX! Even though Red Hat back-ports most of the new fixes into their apache builds, CFMX was not smart enough to figure out it had been modified. I had to uninstall Apache, PHP, and everything else that was dependent upon Apache, and build my own. There's a reason I use a distro's RPMS people!! It saves me a ton of time, but when CFMX wouldn't work with it, I had no choice. I eventually got the updater 2 package to work with Apache 2.0.44... one day after fighting with it and finally getting it to work, I got an email that updater 3 is out!?! I haven't bothered installing it yet because I've already spent waaayyy too much time messing with it. It's just not worth it - stick with CF 5.0 and Apache 1.3.X!!

    2. Re:Almost... by Khazunga · · Score: 2, Informative
      It's quite good, at least for Apache + mod_php. Despite the warnings up at php.net (which seem to be gone now), mod_php works right out of the box with any recent apache, provided you don't use threaded worker models. It makes sense, since handling the fact that mod_php instances would be sharing memory space requires changes to the current codebase. Just stick with the old prefork MPM. I have this setup handling a fairly large site for the last several months, without a glitch.

      mod_perl is supposed to be unstable, but this may be as much a myth as with PHP.

      --
      If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
  2. I use it by Bistronaut · · Score: 4, Informative

    It comes as the default on the newer RedHats, so I installed it. You probably won't even notice the difference. The config file has been cleaned up some, but it's not different enough to rock the boat. Unless you have a specific need to run the old verson, I would definitely go with it on a new install. For old installs, there's no need to upgrade.

  3. Re:Stick with 1.3.x by Bistronaut · · Score: 4, Informative

    "...till they work out all the problems in 2.x" They have (or at least enough where there are just as many left in 1.3.x as 2.x). Apache 2 has been in use for years on some sites - even as a beta it was more reliable than certain second-most-popular web server brands. 2.x has a better architecture, and I believe that fewer vulnerabilities will be found in it in the future than 1.3.x.

  4. Seems OK to me by rasteri · · Score: 3, Informative

    Well, I've been running it for about 2 months and it's never given me any problems. I don't really notice any advantages (or disadvantages) compared to 1.3, although the config file is nicer.

  5. It's ok but.... by MrIcee · · Score: 5, Informative
    We've upgraded our SUNS right along with Apache's releases, and we're running the latest and greatest.

    However, we do have one complaint and have filed bug reports which so far have been unresolved. (btw, prior to apache-2.0.39 we did not experience this problem)

    A number of uses of SUN servers (we use ULTRAS and V100's) have noted that apache httpd children processes hang ocassionally. With prior than .45 releases we were seeing a hang a few times a week. With the .45 release we are seeing on average 3 to 5 hangs a day, so the problem has gotten worse.

    This is not just our boxes - other people have confirmed the problem and the orginal bug report referenced above was actually opened not by me. I asked the original poster if they had problem too with the .45 version and they just upgraded last week and reported back that it also appeared to them to have the problem worse.

    Specifically, a child will hang. If you connect via port 80 (e.g., telnet) to the child it answers, but when you type your line (e.g., GET /) it hangs upon carriage return and ALL the children then are hung in the same manner. There is no load associated with the hang, but the server stops responding FOR A PERIOD OF TIME to port 80 requests (e.g., they all hang). The server does seem to eventually recover - but not fast enough for our clients ;)

    Both the original poster and myself have written watchdog programs which ping (mine pings every 5 seconds) the server and if the server doesn't respond it sends a KILL -USR1 signal (bascially a form of HUP) to the parent process. In 99.9999% of the cases this unsticks the parent and life returns to normal (note, there is no load associated with the hung children - e.g., load does not go up when the child hangs). In the .0001% of the cases where at least two consecutive KILL's don't unstick the parent we do a forced kill of all apache and restart it (again, automated by the watchdog).

    THe other reporter is also using SUNS, so this might be particular with their 2.8 OS. Also, ALL of our suns exhibit it, regardless of apache config, etc.

    Besides that, also note there are a few changes to the config so using your old config will PROBABLY result in apache bitch'n the first time you startup, but the changes are pretty minor (mostly things you don't need anymore).

  6. maybe by GiMP · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mod_perl 2.0 is not stable yet and is missing some features, so you might be better off with 1.3 if you're looking to use it. However, you can certainly get by with using Apache 2.0 and you will likely have a good experience.

    I run both on my servers as I have users who aren't ready for the switch yet and others who want to run the 'latest and greatest'. I also happen to run all of MySQL 3, MySQL 4, and Postgresql 7.3 ;)

  7. I like it by demmegod · · Score: 3, Informative

    I'm using the latest iteration of Apache, and I like it. I'm running it along with PHP and mod_perl, and it all seems to be working well. I've not had any stability issues, and setting it up (I always compile from source) was extremely easy. I choose to compile ALL of the modules, and it still compiled in very little time. I wouldn't ever even think of going back to 1.x

  8. I Recently Did The Same Thing by Enoch · · Score: 3, Informative

    I wrote up an article on installing and configuring the Apache 2.x series with SSL, mod_perl, mod_php, standard graphics libraries (GD, libjpeg, libfreetype, libpng), FreeTDS (to connect to MS SQL Server), and pam_smb/mod_auth_pam (to authenticate against an NT PDC). Pretty exhaustive Apache setup. At the very least, I can assure you that everything works just fine even with those ultra-specific Apache needs.

    enoch
  9. Re:Apache 2 is ready, but why bother? by Khazunga · · Score: 3, Informative
    Why bother:
    • Threading: If you live in Windows land, or in some comercial Unix (namely Solaris), the use of pthreads is surely a speed boost. Beware of module thread safety (mod_php and mod_perl don't support threaded MPMs).
    • Better support for non-Unix platforms: Just for foreigners (win32 people). Apache 2 is considerably faster on windows, than the version 1 counterpart, due to the threading MPM and the new Apache Portable Runtime.
    • Filtering: Filtering allows for fun new stuff, like processing a page with mod_php, then SSI and mod_deflate in the end.
    • Code cleanup: The new Apache is supposedly better designed, easier to maintain and extend, so upgrading is encouraged to avoid having to maintain the old codebase.
    --
    If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
  10. you could always mod_proxy to 1.13.x by DrSkwid · · Score: 2, Informative

    I run 1.13.x on port 8081 and mod_proxy requests for the virtual domains on it from 2 to 1.13

    That way I knew my old setup would still work while I get the chance to use Apache2 to experiment.

    Any new stuff could then be tested on both

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  11. Not really by cdh · · Score: 2, Informative

    Back in Feb, I tried installing a new RH8 box and tried using its Apache2, and tried installing a newer version. Things seemed to work "OK", but it seemed slower and PHP integration was not quite working. We use Gallery and it only worked about half the time. We reverted to 1.3.x and everything has been fine.

  12. Re:Not really. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    PHP4 works just fine. I am using Gentoo, emerge of apache2 and mod_php, make all my settings as per my old 1.x configs and it's up and running.

    Considering how there are -a lot- of sites running apache2 and PHP4, I'd say check your facts first ;)

    (Blu3)