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Is Apache 2.x Ready for General Use?
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?"
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.
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.
Yes, Apache 2 is stable and ready for some time. No doubt about that, it runs on lots of productions sites (check netcraft.com).
Also mod_php, ssl and mod_php are working fine. (although shorter then Apache 2 itself). This is partly because Apache 2 wants thread-safety and some modules (actually not sure about Perl) aren't.
Is see no particular reason not to install Apache 2, but also no reason to do. Redhat is used a lot by internet providers and ships with 2.0 default since 8.0. The 1.3 branch is still maintained and seems faster on Unix-based systems (with fork). On Windows Apache 2 wins, due to the use of threads.
This is a bit standard answer (everyone knows this things, easy to find out), so I want to ask this: How long will all products (mod_*) still work just as good under Apache 1.3.x as under 2.0.x and will 3rd party providers drop support for 1.3 soon? (thus 'forcing' us to upgrade)?
"...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.
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.
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).
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
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
...Don't fix it.
Unless you have a good reason to upgrade, why bother? If this is for a business, and you have no good reason, you have nothing to gain and something (time to upgrade, etc) to lose.
I'm *not* bashing Apache, which is a damn fine product - but we need to get this 'irrational urge to upgrade' out of our heads.
I'm not Seth.
I've used apache 2.0.40 and 2.0.44. I use PHP and ColdFusion with apache on Red Hat Linux. Every freaking time I upgrade apache, I have to completely recompile most modules with it. And even once you get past that, there are some stability issues with PHP. I compiled in support for Apache 2.0.44 with PHP 4.3.1. So far, it's been a nightmare. PHP will randomly corrupt data that I insert into mysql tables. You may think it might be a mysql problem, but if I use the same database with Apache 1.3.27 and PHP 4.1, everything is cool. So, unless you have to switch, don't yet. They will work out the bugs, and then when they do, you know 2.0.X is gonna rock and become yet another legendary product put out by the Apache group.
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.
enochJust done the upgrade myself, and Apache2 appears fine. HOWEVER, I had big problems with the latest mod_php (4.3.1), they seem to have changed the behaviour of includes, so that when you do an include, the pwd becomes the directory in which the include was located. This breaks a lot of web applications such as phpBB2 and Postnuke. I ended up reverting to an older version of PHP (4.2.1) compiled as a CGI which did the trick fine. IPv6 support sure is nice though!
Tim Brown
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
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.