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Apache 1.3.x vs. 2.0.x: The Debate Returns
darthcamaro writes "internetnews.com is running a story about the new Apache 2.0.49 release. They actually got a hold of a pair of Apache Software Foundation members and got them to speak out about the 1.3.x vs. 2.0.49 debate! Also Apache Director Sander Striker told internetnews.com that he expects the Apache 1.3.30 release cycle to begin this week... I still use 1.3.x because I've been using the Apache 1.x series 'forever' and I've never found a solid reason to change. Also, as pointed out in this article, the official PHP documentation clearly states, 'Do not use Apache 2.0 and PHP in a production environment neither on Unix nor on Windows.'"
works for me. Don't need or want 2.0
The PHP manual link posted is a direct link to one of the Canada mirror servers. The PHP site is mirrored around the world and it automatically selects your nearest mirror server.
:D
Use http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.apache2.php instead so that it can select the nearest mirror server and save us slashdotting this one Canadian server
(\(\
(^.^)
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*This is the cute bunny virus, please copy this into your sig so it can spread
Purple and mustard yellow? What the hell were you people thinking?!
...and haven't noticed any problems. Why is this advised against?
I did this after figuring out that no one really knew why you shouldn't. I haven't had any problems. Occasionally someone cites that quote on the comp.lang.php newsgroup, but they never have any reasons to back it up. This is 3 machines, 5 websites between them, that see daily use of an extensive custom written CRM app that is all in PHP. MySQL is the database.
It's almost two years old.
Taken with a grain of salt of course, but I heard that the issue was about 2.0's use of threading whereas 1.3 was always a prefork model. mod_php made certain assumptions in their implementation for the Apache 1.3 version that didn't turn out to be threadsafe -- an obvious problem for Apache 2.0. But then I would tend to say it was a PHP problem rather than an Apache2 problem.
It doesn't surprise me that 1.3 would be the performance winner at first. 2.0 was concentrating efforts on the worker (multi-process/multi-thread) model. Then again, it's been two years since that performance reference was written. Is the performance gap still that wide?
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Prefork or worker?
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
I've been using both 1.3.x and 2.x with Tomcat and I have yet to really notice a difference except that the config files for 2.x seem to be laid out in a more sane order though it took a while to adjust. (I can't speak to PHP usage as the only time I touch it is for running squirrelmail)
...mod_perl does ;)
Seriously. I (like many others) love HTML::Mason. HTML::Mason doesn't work with mod_perl 1.9.x and masonhq isn't going to make it work with mod_perl 1.9.x because they don't want to invest the energy in a pre-production release. I can't blame them. Until mod_perl goes to 2.0, I'm not going to ;)
Advice: on VPS providers
..."Bowen disagrees with the PHP documentation however, noting that actual users report that they are using PHP with Apache 2.0.x without problems."
A while back on Windows I had some issues getting the PHP module to load in Apache 2.0 when I was trying to use the latest releases available for each. However, I believe it was in the beta days of PHP4 and I'm not a fan of PHP anyways, so that doesn't concern me.
Now I use Apache 2.0 because that's what Subversion works with.
I'm using RackSpace and the only way I can get PHP 4.3 and Postgresql 7.4 is if I use RedHat ES 3.0. It uses Apache 2. The only other option is to use PHP 4.1 and Postgresql 7.1. Stupid RackSpace. I would have used FreeBSD except they don't support it as they do with RedCrap.
The above is not worth reading.
I still use 1.3.x because I've been using the Apache 1.x series 'forever' and I've never found a solid reason to change.
:/
I still use Windows/IE/Office because I've been using the Windows/IE/Office series 'forever' and I've never found a solid reason to change.
This little cocktail seems to work flawless for monthes on my production server. I had a few strange problems on apache 1.3 when i changed my hardware (freezes) that pushed me to switch to Apache2 and i'm very happy of it atm.
Basically, the upgrade inertia is largely due to modules. For me here's the list of modules that are currently 1.3.x only: * ChiliASP/mod_casp. I don't know whether they have supported Apache2 now, but frankly I intend to get rid of it of mod_mono (which already supports Apache2). I truly hate this piece of crap! * mod_frontpage. Also haven't checked out lately. * a couple of C modules I wrote. I really hate C though, and I intend to rewrite these in Ruby/mod_ruby.
Check out the guide. I've been running it like this for over a year.
Ransom Love
Havoc Pennington
Sander Striker
Geez, what books were your parents reading you to give you such cool names.
I think I'll change my name to "Gusto McAction".
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Also, it serves to seperate the *real* geeks from those people who just want to get in on *our* sekrit techie news!
(And us more aesthetically gifted geeks tend to just invoke the simplified layout, where we get everything on a white background and don't *have* to see the eyeball-burning "design".)
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
If everyone sticks to 1.x then 2.x won't get enough testing and bug reports. Of course you'd be silly to deploy 2.x if it's going to fall over miserably, but developers should have a box with 2.x installed for testing it and possibly assisting with bug reports.
they've been using 2.0 with php since Sept. 30th 2002. They're pretty smart guys, real nice to. I trust em, So I've been using PHP with Apache2, no problems yet...
I switched from using Apache 1.3.28 with PHP for my business (running on Windows) to using Apache 2.0.48.
With *no other configuration changes*, web pages were rendered and sent out to the clients *literally 3-5 times faster* than they previously had been. A site that took 11 seconds to load and display on Apache 1 took 4 seconds with Apache 2.
This was over a 100 mbit LAN connection; so the bottleneck was definately server-side, not client side.
(the entire thing is reduced to 1 second now...btw)
There are some pretty "interesting" bugs, such as the one where if you have CGI that sends too much output to stdout, the apache child will hang as documented here:
i d= 22030
i d= 19085
http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?
And then there's the fact that Netscape LDAP connectors don't compile properly as a result of autoconfig screwups, as documented here:
http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?
And combine this with the fact that the latest comment from the FSF is... "Buy commercial support and open a bug with them." I think Apache 2.x is looking MIGHT in doubt in terms of direction and support.
Granted, I think I'm being a little full of exaggeration here, but still, I think it's rather nasty that there's this pretty major mod_cgi issue and no one really wants to deal with it because it would be too much work. It makes me think the fun has gone out of developing apache for free.
We go with a hosting company for what they provide. I don't have time to sit there and configure/make/make install all day long... perhaps you do?
Shortcomings... like developing my business? I'll leave the CLI junk to tools like you.
For Redhat 9 and probably other distributions, Apache 2 and PHP are supported out of the box.
What is this 'Apache' and 'PHP' that you speak of? What is wrong with Telnet, IRC, and Shell? It is much more dynamic than using all these new technologies, and it runs well on my Tandy computer.
- Anonymous Coward (Age: 89)
Why hasn't PHP been regression-tested against apache2?
Is there no regression test defined for PHP?
I find that hard to believe.
Are there a boatload of bugs?
That's a little more believable, but still an odd probability, given that there have been 49 revs of 2.0 so far...
Are they being entirely too persnickety about the possibility of minor yet embarassing bugs?
You tell me.
There is a reason that some of us calls Apache2 "the windows version".
The biggest changes were that Apache2 can use threads instead of processes, because Windows is extremely slow when creating processes.
This is also the reason that unix people are slow to upgrade, because there are not much advantage for us, since unix (maybe except Solaris) always were very fast at creating new processes.
I noticed the PHP advice when I was installing it on my Apache 2.x home server. I wouldn't use Apache 2.0 in an enterprise environment (You don't want your boss on your back asking why the server is down?!) but I've found it's very stable for my home server stuff. The only problem I've found is that just after it was released there were regular security patches which I had to keep on top of.
Actually, Windows is the biggest beneficiary of the threaded code, but the IBM OS/400 group in Rochester was the originator of taking Apache in that direction. Creating processes on OS/400 is even more expensive than in Windows, and when they wrote the IBM HTTP Server Powered by Apache, based on the 1.3 codebase, they added threads to it.
I've been using Apache2 now for some time.
I run several commercal sites... one is even a large shopping mall... which gets hammered.
It really is about what is compiled in. :)
It's the old rule, if it's not needed, don't compile it in, it also saves on memory usage and is one less thing that can break/be vulnerable.