IIS 7.0 Learns a Few Tricks from Apache

An anonymous reader writes "According to BetaNews, Microsoft is learning a few tricks from Apache for the next release of IIS, version 7.0. Specifically, the IIS feature set has been broken down into modules to reduce overhead. Modules can be changed on the fly, without restarting the Web server. Also, the IIS metabase has been completely dropped in favor of easily editable XML configuration files. Each Web application can have its own config file that overrides the system-wide configuration."

Comments

About time

[BWJones]

Specifically, the IIS feature set has been broken down into modules to reduce overhead. Modules can be changed on the fly, without restarting the Web server.

I am shocked that it has taken this long to implement these features. Come on now. The rest of the industry has known that this increases stability, eases management and reduced computational overhead for years. Why is it do they think that an eight year old Linux box running Apache can serve up such huge volume versus a latest and greatest IIS server? Also, "simple configuration. IIS 7.0 does away with complicated the "Metabase" and replaces it with XML configuration files, Well, yeah! The fact that they are even talking about doing this rather than simply implementing the feature and then talking about it troubles me though. For myself, I am not running anything sophisticated for the sites I manage but I want simplicity of management and therefore went with standard OSX hosting systems. For heavier lifting, an OS X server system for our scientific databases is not quite as fast as Linux based solutions for some data types, but it is certainly easier to manage than Linux or IIS. If Microsoft wants me to switch, they had better come out with something truly special rather than simply aping the rest of the industry.

Re:About time

[Golias]

If Microsoft wants me to switch, they had better come out with something truly special rather than simply aping the rest of the industry.

Simply aping the rest of the industry has always worked for them before. Why change now?

Re:About time

[BWJones]

Simply aping the rest of the industry has always worked for them before. Why change now?

Funny, truly funny. But Oh, so true.

Re:About time

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

What is wrong with copying, should they have come up with some new config format so it could be different than everyone else? How much crap can you add to a web server anyway?

Re:About time

[turbotalon]

The important thing to remember is the current install base. They don't need to innovate, only keep the differences in performance/features small enought that the hassles of switching are greater than the benefits. In other words, they need only keep people happy enough to stay. Many places (like where I work, UPS) are MS B****hes and it would take something VERY VERY major to convice them to go elsewhere, even if MS has a vasly inferior product.

Re:About time

[justforaday]

I think he forgot the 'r' up there...

Re:About time

[toddbu]

rather than simply aping the rest of the industry.

Well, let's hope that they can actually pull it off. Just breaking the system into modules isn't enough. What they're really missing is cool functionality like mod_rewrite.

Re:About time

[The Clockwork Troll]

Inquiring minds want to know what the extra letter in "bitches" is.

Re:About time

[toddbu]

You got it wrong. It's "beetches".

Re:About time

[The Clockwork Troll]

I stand cor*****ed!

Re:About time

[aktzin]

I was really surprised when this came out in 2001:

"Research group Gartner is advising businesses to "immediately" replace their Microsoft Internet Information Server software with a more secure server application, following attacks on IIS by the worms Code Red and Nimda."

http://news.com.com/2102-1001_3-273461.html?tag=st .util.print

Gartner approves of Microsoft more often than not, and this was by far the most negative opinion I've ever seen them express about MS. Too bad hardly anyone took their advice.

Re:About time

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

Simply aping the rest of the industry has always worked for them before. Why change now? Because the other option is:

a) Free
b) Easily modifiable if you figure out something else you want it to do
c) More Stable
d) Running on an OS that's Free'er than yours
e) Kicking your tail
f) Preferred by Developers
g) All of the above

It might be mildly intelligent to actually add features that people really want badly to overcome the rest of the problems there....

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

I said it elsewhere in this post but IIS6's metabase is already XML.

Re:About time

[CDMA_Demo]

Simply aping the rest of the industry has always worked for them before. Why change now?

Not really. They also rely on innovation. They bought hotmail and excel. Thats innovative, don't you think?

Re:About time

[hkb]

Why is it do they think that an eight year old Linux box running Apache can serve up such huge volume versus a latest and greatest IIS server?

Uhh proof? In my own non-scientific experiments, IIS6 smokes a modern Apache box, let alone an 8 year old one.

The fact that they are even talking about doing this rather than simply implementing the feature and then talking about it troubles me though.

The Microsoft developers are talking and blogging about this to get community feedback. This has long been an informal Microsoft tradition, and is now becoming more formal and widespread. Anyone who hangs out on MSDN or Channel 9 knows this.

I want simplicity of management and therefore went with standard OSX hosting systems.

I find it funny you complain about performance earlier in your post and then say you use OS X servers, which are notorious for their poor server/network io performance. Still, client-side OS X is my favorite OS of all time.

but it is certainly easier to manage than Linux or IIS.

It's easier to manage than IIS in the same way that Commodore 64s are more secure than UNIX. Much of the web server's configuration options are hidden from you in the OS X server admin tools.

  Often, us OS X administrators need to do more tweaking than the GUI tools allow, and thus, we must dive into the complete nightmare that is Apache .conf files.

And you're on total crack if you claim that Apache is easier than IIS to configure.

If Microsoft wants me to switch

It's funny when anti-MS zealots say this. As if they'd ever use anything from a company they consider the anti-christ.

they had better come out with something truly special rather than simply aping the rest of the industry.

They already have. While IIS5 was good, it was inferior to Apache, imho. As far as I'm concerned, IIS6 blows the doors off of Apache in terms of speed, power, and configuration.

Re:About time

[kahanamoku]

Funny, until they Patent the Idea of using modules and editable text files for configuration of a web server

Re:About time

[DJ-Dodger]

The IIS metabase is already an XML configuration file. It has been since IIS 6.0 which ships with Windows Server 2003. It sounds like they are just making some changes to it. Located at systemroot\System32\Inetsrv\Metabase.xml They also provide a schema file for it: MBSchema.xml

See this article for technical details.

Re:About time

[LO0G]

Excel? Nope, not purchased, 100% developed by Microsoft.

Now then, Powerpoint, Hotmail, Frontpage, etc were purchased.

But not Excel.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally, I think IIS is MUCH better than Apache, least as far as security is concerned.

The ratio of IIS vulns to Apache vulns is like 1:1000

Re:About time

[toddbu]

corrupteed?

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the industry has known that this increases stability, eases management and reduced computational overhead for years.

What they don't know is that it also increases the opportunities to milk your customers for more money. "A rewrite rule you say? Sure, $43."

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

>>And you're on total crack if you claim that Apache is easier than IIS to configure.

Can you set up IIS + php + mysql + few other modules in less than 5 min to serve up your php based sites?
default settings with debian are USABLE and installation is dead simple.

Re:About time

[hkb]

Can you set up IIS + php + mysql + few other modules in less than 5 min to serve up your php based sites?

Yes, actually I can, using one of several "WIMP" (Windows - IIS - MySQL - PHP) installers available on the net. Since I am particularly skilled with such software on Windows, I can do it manually in under 5 minutes. Why do you ask?

Oh, and on Windows, we usually use a more robust platform for web development: ASP.NET and MSSQL (The MSDE version works for most tasks where MySQL would otherwise be used. I personally use MSSQL Standard, though.)

And please compare PHP to ASP.NET, or vim/emacs/kdevelop to Visual Studio, I need a good laugh.

Re:About time

[Short Circuit]

IME, it's very difficult to be equally skilled in both Apache and IIS. So the question is, who tuned your IIS setup, and who tuned your Apache setup?

A guy who only how to tune product X well is, of course, going to see a performance drop when he tries product Y unless X is rediculously poor by comparison.

Re:About time

[Ice Station Zebra]

asp.net more robust? What are you smoking hkb? Do you really need a 1000mb environment to write scripts?

Re:About time

[Mo Bedda]

- If you leave a Windows box running IIS alone in the corner of your office (Like I have), you will rarly touch it, I usually install updates once every few months.

Most folks find web servers more useful when connected to a network.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two things I like about IIS:

1. it is easier and quicker to turn off a single virtual host in IIS

2. host headers are marginally easier to configure in IIS

That's it. Everything else, compared tit-for-tat, I like Apache better.

Re:About time

[danheskett]

What environment are you talking about? ASP.NET is no "1000mb" environment. At very least you can run it just dandy on a 100mb Linux install with Mono and Apache.

The actualy ASP.NET of a Windows webserver is, what, 25mb, if that?

I write PHP for about 20% of my living, and I can tell you, it's not joy doing the same shit in various forms all the time under PHP. I like it because it's simple, but the first thing most serious serious PHP developer do is implement some base classes that handle things that I take for granted.

Most people who bitch about ASP.NET either (1) have never used it, or (2) have only used it a failed attempt to treat it like every other web "scripting" language, when that's not what it is.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes you can do things like that with IIS using HttpModules. It's thoroughly documented as well (on MSDN, 4GuysFromRolla, The Code Project, etc etc) with all the source code you'd ever want or need. It's quite simple really, and there is very little code needed.

And if you don't want to think/read/peek at source/compile anything or the like, then there's always ISAPI_rewrite (the lite version is free and is enough for most tasks, and the full is reasonably priced). There is also OpURL and others.

If you were following with the IIS stuff better, you'd see it actually ISN'T really missing anything important, and IIS 7 is just going to rock.

Of course this'll get modded -1 Shill...

Re:About time

[masdog]

" a) Free - IIS is also free." Is IIS free, or is it's cost included in the price of Windows?

Re:About time

[DavidTC]

a) Free
- IIS is also free.

IIS is free? Holy shit!

Where's the download for XP Home, then?

Oh, wait, it's not free, it's merely included in the price of something else.

b) Easily modifiable if you figure out something else you want it to do
- IIS isnt that hard to figure out.. I figured it out as fast as Apache. Because of the strong/open community around Microsoft products, them being diffult to use is easily overcome

You missed the 'modifiable' part of that, didn't you? Apache has source. If worse comes to worse, you find a module that's close to what you want, and hack it. (I think this is one of the things MS is trying to change here.)

c) More Stable
- If you leave a Windows box running IIS alone in the corner of your office (Like I have), you will rarly touch it, I usually install updates once every few months.

So...you're owned every month, then? Or is the corner of your office not connected to the internet?

Or, wait? Is your webserver behind a Linux proxy/firewall? Admit it, it is, isn't it?

d) Running on an OS that's Free'er than yours?
- 100 bucks is not really something to complain about. If that overhead is hurting your business you have larger problems.

You can't even get XP Home for 100 bucks. And Home does not have IIS.

A 'legit according to MS' license for XP Pro is $269.00. See here. That's sans CD, incidentally.

Yes, you can get it for cheaper, but those are often counterfeit or gray market OEM version. (While the illegality of selling those is probably dubious under the Doctrine of First Sale, Microsoft does not get to use gray market licenses that it is trying to stop to demonstrate about how low its prices are.)

Windows Server 2003 might be cheaper, but I can't locate it. However, it's not 100 dollars.

e) Kicking your tail
- ?

I think that is self-explanitory. Apache owns the web server market with 70% of the entire thing, and MS limps in at 20%, with the other 10% being other Unix servers. I think 70% vs. 20% is 'kicking tail'.

f) Preferred by Developers
- Considering the .NET Framework is the most propular develpment platform today, I am sure this could be argued.

Oh, I understand. You'll living in that parallel universe where people care about .NET. Um, no. Depending on want you mean by that, the 'most popular development enviroment' is probably C, like it's been for the past 30 years. If you mean 'desktop programs', I suspect C++ might slightly win over C, with Java in there somewhere.

Even if you're saying 'Windows application development enviroment', .NET doesn't win, and I don't know what the hell that would have to do with web server.

With web development, almost all is Perl and PHP. ASP comes in a distance third, and ASP.NET isn't even making a dent.

But wait! .NET is by Microsoft, and it's new. We should all immedaitely start using it so we can be obsoleted in four years.

VB anyone? ASP? J++? Just exactly how many programming languages has MS left to rot?

Some of us like to code in languages that have open source versions, or at least are multiple vender-supported standards, so we don't get tossed out of the Microsoft truck when it decides to randomly swerve in a new direction.

Re:About time

[DavidTC]

It's easy to manage hosts if you do it outside of httpd.conf.

Seperate each host into its own file with the name of the file being the name of the virtual host plus .conf. Put them all in a directory, and then just Include path/*.conf

If you want to remove one, mv hostname.conf hostname.save.

And it's trivial to make an 'add a host' batch file that way, too, using a template.

I don't know what you mean by 'host headers', however. You can add headers in virtual servers, and there's a module that sends files 'as-is', with them including their own headers and the web server not making any up. (Like cgi scripts, but not executed.)

And I think there's a module that will do something like read index.html.headers and put that in the headers when you request index.html, but I can't remember what it is called.

Re:About time

[hkb]

You're an ignorant dumb ass. Why?

1.) ASP.NET is NOT ASP and NOT scripting. ASP and PHP are analogs, JSP/Servlets and ASP.NET are analogs.

2.) ASP.NET is not 1GB, its more ~25mb or so. The entire MS development environment (Windows apps, ASP.NET/enterprise database dev tools/mobile development/all the SDKs and MSDN are about 1GB on my machine).

And if you want to argue about something stupid like framework size, let's talk about all the frameworks you see installed on the average Linux box.

3.) A framework's size does not have anything to do with robustness.

Yet another stupid, clueless Linux user who argues against Windows using Windows 95-era bullet items, gotta love it.

Re:About time

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

Actually, at my last company we did have experts for both apache, and IIS. On low in boxes, for simple services like static html, the preformance was similar, on high end multi-proc servers, IIS was signficantly more performant. Belive it or not, W2K, and newer versions of NT have a very effective async threading module that gives them an advantage over Linx based WebServers. Apache is a great product, but it is seprate from LINIX, and Microsoft is getting better at intergrating IIS into newer versions of NT.

Re:About time

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't for b), that would have been a beautiful troll.

Re:About time

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

The truth of the matter is that for most small to moderate sites, Linx + Apache + php + mysql is a very powerfull, and afforable package. One that Microsoft and IIS up until know has been hard pressed to beat. In the near future, with II7, Asp.net 2.0, and Sql Express, they are getting very close, and the MS platform aruguable would scale much better then a php based system.

Re:About time

[kilodelta]

And when they can't ape it, they buy it. Remember that.

Re:About time

[Crumplecorn]

And please compare PHP to ASP.NET, or vim/emacs/kdevelop to Visual Studio

I would like to compare these (not verbally, I mean actually run them and compare them). And I'm already running Windows (WAMP at the moment)!
Where can I download IIS and Visual Studio?

Re:About time

[marbleye]

IIS Free ? Last time I looked you have to pay big money if you want to have more than 50 (IIRC) simultaneous concurrent user-connections from your .asp(x) app to a MSSQL server.

Re:About time

[bhtooefr]

What Windows version are you running?

2000 and XP Pro have IIS as an optional component. Go to Add/Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components, and add IIS.

2000 and 2003 Servers (except I think there's a file/print-server only 2003 edition) install IIS by default, IIRC. If not, follow those instructions.

Note that the current version of IIS (6.x) is only available on Server 2003 - IIS 5.0 is all you get on the desktop OSes (actually, a crippled version) and 2000 Server.

As for Visual Studio... go to a college bookstore, and buy a copy of a textbook for something like VB or VC#. It should come with it. Also, MS has a 30-day trial for $5.

Re:About time

[Crumplecorn]

I have XP Pro. Hmm, a crippled version, can't I get full IIS and/or the newer version for XP Pro from somewhere?

Re:About time

[hkb]

You can get development tools off of Microsoft. Enterprise versions will cost you a little money, but you pay for quality, and thats what the enterprise tools are: quality.

I doubt you'll need a full version of IIS to play around with ASP.NET, so stop your whining. It does everything the server version of IIS does, it just allows fewer concurrent connections. Not exactly crippled.

Re:About time

[hkb]

All of this is true, and I actually recommend Linux server solutions to smaller shops. It's more cost-effecient at that level.

It has been my experience that in the big iron world, Windows is actually more cost-effective _for us_, despite the occasional, outrageous licensing fee. With all the freed management time, we're also able to do more.

This has been reflected in our situation where back in our Solaris/Linux/BSD days (the world I came from originally, before I ever used Windows) we were behind our local contemporaries in terms of services and infrastructure.

After we (me, grudgingly, originally) switched to a Windows infrastructure, we've rocketed past our contemporaries and now we're being asked how we do x and such.

Of course, we religious patch our systems (which is loads easier than anything on Linux/BSD/Solaris). We've had 1 security problem, which hit a neglected Windows 2000 server on our WAN. Other than that, we've had no security problems. Back in our UNIX days, we had about one a year (several ftpd daemons and sshd, ironically never sendmail or BIND).

Hopefully MS will get a clue and reduce licensing costs. I hope Linux gains a marketshare if only to force MS into its unstagnant competitive mode where prices plummet and we don't have to wait 7 years for new browser/etc releases.

Re:About time

[nizo]

Actually I haven't touched our IIS server at all in months. Thankfully I haven't needed to since I turned it off after replacing it with the new apache server a few months back.

Re:About time

[bhtooefr]

Fewer concurrent connections (10, IIRC), but also no virtual server support.

However, ASP.NET stuff is good to go - that's what the desktop version of IIS is for, testing web apps on IIS without setting up (and paying for) a real server.

Re:About time

[Pope]

Moreover, developed for the Macintosh first!

Re:About time

[hkb]

Roger that,

And most MS developers can obtain an MSDN subscription fairly cheap, which gives you a development license for every Microsoft product and beta under the sun.

I think we pay ~$150 per person for an annual MSDN Universal subscription.

Re:About time

[hepwori]

I think we pay ~$150 per person for an annual MSDN Universal subscription.

I doubt it. MSDN Universal subscriptions cost $2,799 per developer seat. Still very good value if you develop using MS technologies (I had one for a number of years), but a little more than $150.

Re:About time

[hkb]

Oops, you're right MSDN Universal's $1200 a year for us, $150 for our students, but it isn't a full Universal deal. I musta been on crack. Still, really damn worth it.

Re:About time

[EventHelix.com]

ASP.NET 2.0 is quite innovative and would be one of the reasons why develops would stick with IIS.

Re:About time

[jonadab]

> IIS Free ? Last time I looked you have to pay big money if you want to have
> more than 50 (IIRC) simultaneous concurrent user-connections from your
> .asp(x) app to a MSSQL server.

The price of MS SQL Server CALs is not really germaine to this discussion. I wouldn't call IIS free ("sunk cost", *maybe*, but not free), but the price of another product by the same vendor is neither here nor there.

Re:About time

[Crumplecorn]

so stop your whining
Nah, I have a full version of Apache. Whine Whine Whine. :-p

Re:About time

[rs churchill]

At last Microsoft have looked at the competition and have started to make changes and more importantly started to open up some of IIS's secrets. From what I saw at Tech Ed this year I'm impressed but they stopped short of IIS 7's potential. For instance there's no out of the box implementation for the re-write module which is a great shame. I hope it gives a good framework to launch IIS 8 from.

Re:About time

[Ice Station Zebra]

No, but visual studio is and you really aren't productive in asp.net unless you use vs.

If you do the same shit every time in php, you truly are doing something wrong.

I've used asp.net using C# to write a web based program for a major corporation. Frankly, .net 1.1 sucks.

XML Config

[mysqlrocks]

I link the XML configuration. Hopefully Apache does this soon. Editing the httpd.conf file is a real pain.

Re:XML Config

[grub]

I was thinking the exact opposite. I like editting a plain ol' text file by hand. Editting XML is a pain; yeah it's all text but then so is Postscript.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Editing the httpd.conf file is a real pain.

Heh, I worked with someone who thought it was a pain to edit too. His solution - he erased every single comment from httpd.conf. (He thought it was a pain because it was too long. Needless to say, tempers flared.)

Re:XML Config

[Nos.]

I tend to agree... sort of. Once your familiar with httpd.conf, editing it tends to be quite simple. However, trying to write an application front end to do that is a pain. This is where XML is nice. Its structured and formatted. The idea behind using XML isn't to make your life easier to edit it by hand... its to make it easier to make automated tools to edit and query the config files.

Re:XML Config

[Afrosheen]

Would have been nice had he done one of these first:

  mv /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.bak

I hate it when anyone changes a conf file and doesn't move it somewhere first, at the end of the day you're grabbing source files and unpacking them just for a default config file.

Re:XML Config

[WindBourne]

I link the XML configuration. Hopefully Apache does this soon. Editing the httpd.conf file is a real pain.

No problem. Most of the apache systems can link to any XML config file.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Would have been nice had he done one of these first:

    mv /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf.bak

Heh, fat chance with that guy. I usually append a bind type serial number (2005091501) to the end of a copy. If you just use .bak you can accidently write a bad copy over a good one. Even worse is finding things like:

httpd.orig.bak3 or
httpd.conf.this.one.works2.bak

in the conf directory.

Re:XML Config

[Afrosheen]

You bring up a very good point, and I have to admit that at times I've been guilty of putting goofy tags at the end of backup conf file names as well.

  I think I'm going to create a full backup of my /etc/ directory in /conf/backups or /conf/defaults from now on to avoid confusion. Then if I need an older, presumably working Apache conf file I'll just head for that folder and there it is. Maybe make it readonly just to be on the safe side.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if you could use the OS X plist editor on those XML files?

Re:XML Config

[owlstead]

XML is also good for converting a config file to a new format without (too much coding).

Anyway, you don't have to edit XML by hand. It's easy to do so if it's formatted towards a user, but I asume there are better ways. And the best thing; once you are familiar with XML, you know the syntax (not the semantics, but at least the syntax) of all the other XML configuration files out there. Especially if they adhere to the schema standards for formatting data values.

I loved editing my channels for the (linux) tvtime application. That was really a place where XML was a time saver.

Re:XML Config

[erichill]

#if RANT

I keep thinking, "Who's idea was it to have humans work directly with XML?" It makes Perl look pretty. Back in the day, I thought these languages were supposed to be used by programs, and that tools would exist to marshall these supposedly easy-to-parse markup languages in and out of more-or-less simple data structures, and let us work with them in a somewhat intuitive manner. Instead, we keep typing piles of angle brackets and other shifted special characters by hand.

Where are all the toolsmiths?

#endif

(No offense to Perl fans intended)

Re:XML Config

[HermanAB]

Yeah, a sendmail configuration file is almost as annoying as editing an XML file...

Re:XML Config

[MonsoonDawn]

We wrote some simple hook scripts for SubVersion that automatically deploys changes to a test instance for syntax checking and then to all our regular servers. We actually to this for all our Linux configuration files. It's a hell of a lot better than .bak the crap.

Re:XML Config

[David_W]

I think I'm going to create a full backup of my /etc/ directory in /conf/backups or /conf/defaults from now on to avoid confusion.

Another trick you can use is to check all of your config files into RCS (or CVS, if you swing that way). When you want to change something, you check it out, and once it works you check it back in. If you need ANY older version, it's always there.

Re:XML Config

[diegocgteleline.es]

This is where XML is nice.

XML is nice when you need a machine to process something. But it's suboptimal when you need a human to process it...I guess the question is: your http server's configuration file is meant to be processed by a machine or a human?

Re:XML Config

[tshak]

httpd.conf is a pseudo XML. I don't see how it could possibly be a more pleasant than XML. It's almost the same thing, but less structured and more error prone.

In the days of IIS 4 and 5, I preferred hacking perl scripts to manage httpd.conf's. Yes, httpd.conf is easy. But after working with IIS6 (and now looking forward to IIS7) I can say that having a strongly typed object model to code against is a lot less error prone with features that are a lot easier to discover thanks to intellisense. Text just doesn't scale.

Re:XML Config

[holloway]

I'd disagree, I mean the virtualhosts bit looks like XML... but it's not, so you get the syntax hassle but not the benefits. The rest is key=value but people don't edit that so much, and it's almost worth the hassle to make it all XML.

I'd like XML because it'd make it easier on GUI editors, and I really there's no part of the config that couldn't be put in a GUI.

Re:XML Config

[petermgreen]

httpd.conf is a pseudo XML. I don't see how it could possibly be a more pleasant than XML

well it combines the power of a nestable structure with the conciseness of simple name=value pairs for the values themselves.

which is easier to read and edit to you?

  (XML)

optionname=shit (apache)

Re:XML Config

[Kelson]

As long as the syntax is relatively easy to learn and write, I don't see that it matters whether it's XML or some other plain-text format. It just has to be portable.

Up to now, it's been much easier to copy a website with all its settings from one Apache server to another than to do the same on IIS.

For the seasoned admin, config files are much easier to work with. A GUI that edits the config files is even better, but a GUI alone is a pain to work with for anything but small changes.

Re:XML Config

[killjoe]

One of the first things I do when I install a linux box is to check the entire /etc directory into CVS. I can't even begin to tell you how many times that simple act saved my ass.

Re:XML Config

[Kent Recal]

Trick? Can any sysadmin even exist without this?!
The occassional ci -l important.conf has saved my ass more than once.

Re:XML Config

[93 Escort Wagon]

"Heh, fat chance with that guy. I usually append a bind type serial number (2005091501) to the end of a copy. If you just use .bak you can accidently write a bad copy over a good one. Even worse is finding things like:

httpd.orig.bak3 or
httpd.conf.this.one.works2.bak

in the conf directory."

CRAP! How'd you get root access to my server?

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Coward]

Editting XML is a pain; yeah it's all text but then so is Postscript.

That's why you use an XML editor, preferably one which imports the schema to know what the data constraints are and adjusts the user interface to match, or even one which is designed for a particular schema. Using a text editor to edit XML is like using a hex editor to edit text. It'll work, but it's the wrong tool for the job.

Re:XML Config

[grub]

I'd rather use a text editor. If your server is colo'd across the country do you really need a bunch of windows popping open via X or whatever MS' thing is called just to change some settings?

Re:XML Config

[sparkz]

mv????

Surely you mean cp at least?!

Plus the comments above this one... I've never gone into the CVS/etc level of doing stuff, but at least back it up to httpd.conf.`date`, if nothing else.

Our httpd.conf is over 4000 lines now, so I've broken it up into seperate files, with a script which simply cat's them together (001header, 002laterstuff, 003middlestuff, 004endstuff, basically). Then create an httpd.conf from the sub-files.

The script doesn't deal with someone hacking the httpd.conf by hand, but all it does is create a http`date`.conf file, displays a "diff" from the existing httpd.conf, and tells you what to do if you choose to activate the differences.

It's not perfect, I'd never claim that anything was perfect, but it gives backups by date/time, and allows you to confirm the changes before you activate them. It also (deliberately) does not have the balls to activate the new config, it just tells the sysadmin what s/he would have to do to activate it (having shown the diffs).

Re:XML Config

[Curtman]

"which is easier to read and edit to you?

(XML)

optionname=shit (apache)"

That's funny.. Slashcode shat on your tags, making "optionname=shit", much more readable. Hahaha

Use "&lt;" in place of the "<", and it won't eat your tags.

Re:XML Config

[Short Circuit]

I've heard no end of good things about a Windows app called CoolEdit. But I don't run Windows...

On Debian:

shortcircuit@salpha$ apt-cache search xml|grep edit
tdtd - Emacs major mode for editing SGML and XML DTDs
glimmer - Programmer's editor with multiple windows and syntax highlighting
mlview - An xml editor for GNOME environment
qemacs - Small emacs clone editor with HTML and DocBook editing support
woody - Hierarchic text editor
bluefish - advanced Gtk+ HTML editor
conglomerate - userfriendly XML editor
conglomerate-common - common files for the userfriendly XML editor
kxmleditor - XML Editor for KDE
libgtkmathview0 - A GTK widget for rendering and editing MathML documents
manedit - A GTK+-based Enhanced ManPage Editor and -Viewer
notebook-gtk2 - A GTK+ logbook editor
nxml-mode - Emacs mode for editing XML documents using RELAX NG schemas
rnc-mode - Emacs editing mode for RELAX NG Compact syntax

Granted, not all of those are regular XML editors...

Re:XML Config

[Just Some Guy]

Our httpd.conf is over 4000 lines now, so I've broken it up into seperate files, with a script which simply cat's them together

Don't do that unless you have to. There are better ways to get the same result.

Re:XML Config

[Just Some Guy]

His solution - he erased every single comment from httpd.conf.

I worked for a small ISP, and we used a heavily-commented named.conf and associated zone files to keep track of configuration information, explanations for non-obvious things, etc. Since we were a small shop and worked well together, this was fine. Until we merged with another ISP. Whose admins "helpfully" slaved their BIND to ours, made it the master, and then slaved ours to theirs. Without changing the zone filenames in named.conf. I think that, had I been in the same room with them before we managed to retrieve our off-site backups, I might've had to have killed them.

One hugely useful system is to use version control on your configuration directories. Let the new guy delete at will; you can always roll back his commits and explain why you're going to beat him if he does it again.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Coward]

So why not a binary file? XML is the worst of both of worlds - expensive to parse by machine, and a PITA to edit by hand.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Coward]

You're stupid. Use emacs with nxml-mode.

Re:XML Config

[ink]

That's the problem, actually.

Yes, you could use any XML editor on the file, but it still doesn't really buy you anything. Configuring a webserver is a complicated task, and those that complain about the complexity of the configuration file are often simply expressing ignorance of the process (which a GUI will not really solve).

I haven't used IIS since version 4, but oh my! What a mess that GUI was; I didn't find it helpful in the least. In fact, I was often roaming around (configuring a vhost was a horrible task) trying to remember *where* the gadget that I needed was placed.

Contrast that with httpd.conf, where one can search for sections in any one of hundreds of text editors out there. You can even use other text processing tools such as perl, or even the unix userland.

Converting the config file over to XML will make it easier for a machine to read the data (the httpd daemon can read either, so it doesn't really care one way or the other) at the cost of sacrificing all the other tools. Well, crippling them at least. As I said in another post, bringing up the Tomcat XML configuration file in vi is a mess; emacs electric highlighting makes it a tad bit better -- and the web configuation tool can't do many many things that need to be done (such as migrating a tomcat4 to a tomcat5 configuration). Couple that with all the advice to "put this in your tomcat config file" all over the net: I suspect a VERY SMALL number of users ever take advantage of the benefit that XML offers, and the rest of us must suffer with it.

Re:XML Config

[DavidTC]

It isn't psuedo XML at all. That would be a neat trick, considering how far it predates XML.

It's merely a nested config file. Each option is set with a single line that has the option name and then the setting(s) to give that.

Many of these options can be put inside a 'restrictor'. You can restrict options to files, directories, URL paths (Locations), and virtual hosts. These restrictors look vaguely like XML, but lots of things look vaguely like XML.

Re:XML Config

[DavidTC]

I thought everyone did this? Are there still people putting every virtual host in the same file? That's complete insanity.

I was sitting here wondering what people were talking about with editing their httpd.conf and how it was 40000 lines.

Lines in httpd.conf on my server: 437
Lines in other included files: 1314

And this is with some magical include tricks to reduce. For example...using auth? Is it mysql auth, where it's two dozen lines long? Are you using that same auth, with different users/passwords from the same database, on a dozen site?

Well, make a Directory block for each directory, and in each one, put:

Include conf/mysql_auth.conf
require user username

In auth.conf, put Satisfy all and AuthType Basic and AuthMySQLHost whatever and all that crap.

This is good for security, especially if your virtual host config files want to be world readable so they are easily viewed with custom scripts. (Like scripts to automatically set up web log parsing on new hosts.) You can leave them as such, yet keep your mysql password secure.

And this tip is good for other things. Do you have a complicated php program, like phpBB or Mambo, where you want to set five PHP settings, a few RewriteEngine commands, a custom 404 page, etc etc? Make a conf/phpbb.conf, and include it in each virtual host you run that on.

I leave you with this script I wrote, in a public domain, in case you were wondering what I meant by 'scripts'.

IPS=`/sbin/ifconfig |grep "inet addr"|cut -b21-34|cut -d' ' -f1|uniq`
for i in $IPS
{
echo "---"$i
grep -l $i /etc/httpd/domains/*|cut -d'/' -f5
}

You'll need to fix the path, and it assumes you'll get useful information from the config filename. (Although that first line is worth looking at alone!)

Re:XML Config

[Dom2]

If you think httpd.conf is simple, you're not trying hard enough. :-)

I usually find it's simple right up to the point where I have to bend it in some new and unknown fashion...

-Dom

Re:XML Config

[Knetzar]

This is Microsoft. They will have a GUI config tool to modify this file and in 90% of the cases that will be enough. A few geeks and large corps will use custom programs to modify the file and a few people (+ those doing PD) will modify it by hand.

Re:XML Config

[bcmm]

So you need root access to read /etc/ on your box?
Therefore you run your web server as root?

Re:XML Config

[GingerDog]

RCS / Subversion / CVS etc.

Choose your poison.

Re:XML Config

[stefanb]

Heh, I worked with someone who thought it was a pain to edit too. His solution - he erased every single comment from httpd.conf. (He thought it was a pain because it was too long. Needless to say, tempers flared.)

This is exactly what I do. The default httpd.conf has *way* too much crap in it. Just commenting out or removing everything that just reiterates the default anyway cuts it down considerably, and makes it *much* easier to understand.

Re:XML Config

[TractorBarry]

Add a couple of parsers to convert between XML to Plain text, and vice versa, and you've got the best of both worlds.

Re:XML Config

[Anonymous Coward]

"Use emacs"? And he's stupid? hahahaha

Re:XML Config

[Crumplecorn]

This is where XML is nice. Its structured and formatted.

Whereas conf files are random text, unparsable by anything?

Re:XML Config

[Crumplecorn]

These restrictors look vaguely like XML, but lots of things look vaguely like XML.

<anytag can-anything-parse-this="no" did-i-just-pull-this-out-of-my-ass="yes" but-is-it-valid-xml="yes">Damn right they do! :-D</anytag>
<explanationtag question="Why do so many things look like XML?" explanation="Because many things look like HTML and XML is pseudo-html" example="\<rant\>A rant\</rant\>">Why is there no useful text inside this tag? Who knows?</explanationtag>

<conffilesOTOH>
are-more-easily-read="ifyou'resane"
are-neater="definitely"
are-better-established="true"
have-attributes-in-a-nice-list-instead-of-a-single -line-of-text="yes"
</conffilesOTOH>

Re:XML Config

[sparkz]

I'm not going to switch to Apache2 just for that, though am I?!

Re:XML Config

[Just Some Guy]

Why would you?

Re:XML Config

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

The whole point of xml being human reading, ie editable is off point. Its the fact that xml's structured format makes it more machineable, ie you can write scpripts/programs that read,write,query,update and validate much easier then you can a unstructured text file.

Re:XML Config

[DavidTC]

Apache's config is actually even nicer than that.

You don't use quotes or equals.

It looks like this:

<VirtualHost 10.0.0.1:80>
Servername domain.dom
RewriteRule ^/blah([a-zA-Z0-9]*).gif$ /var/www/blah/$1.jpg
</VirtualHost>

The RewriteRule is just an example of an option with two parameters. And normally there's indenting, but slashdot is being a bitch.

If you have paths with spaces in them, you end up putting those in quotes, and a few other random things. But usually you don't need them, and you don't use = at all.

Re:XML Config

[tshak]

Your example completely ignores Xml Schema Validation, which can be used not only to help prevent things like spelling errors but also help discover what is supported for configuration without having to pour through (potentially outdated) documentation.

Re:XML Config

[Crumplecorn]

Fortunately I can spell, and I find Apache's documentation just fine.

Not XML

[DarkHelmet]

Also, the IIS metabase has been completely dropped in favor of easily editable XML configuration files.

Apache's configuration is not XML. In fact, it has been my Biggest Request for a while now.

Apache is great when it comes to some things, but is lacking when it comes to others. Running in prefork MPM is fine for the most part, but I really wish perchild would get off the ground so that PHP scripts won't be all running as the same user. Now if only all of PHP's modules were thread safe...

Re:Not XML

[shmlco]

"...easily editable XML configuration files."

Great. Now instead of checking off a box in a dialog I need a 500 page reference manual to figure out what entry I need to add to what node to get the same result.

Re:Not XML

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Yeah. God forbid you be able to set something up with something so archaic as a script.

Re:Not XML

[karmakillernz]

IIS 6.0 already has fully XML-based configuration with changes that are applied without restarting the web server, something I believe Apache can't do. This is in addition to the standard GUI configuration, which is also being upgraded in IIS 7.0.

The biggest change I see coming is the modular architecture, which is definately welcome.

Re:Not XML

[vcv]

There is still a GUI based admin tool where you can do all of the same things.

Re:Not XML

[Atzanteol]

killall -HUP apache

Reloads the apache config. *some* things can't be reloaded on-the-fly however. But many things can.

Re:Not XML

[Rasta Prefect]

Running in prefork MPM is fine for the most part, but I really wish perchild would get off the ground so that PHP scripts won't be all running as the same user. Now if only all of PHP's modules were thread safe...

suPHP will take care of that for you. Well, the user bit, not the thread safety bit.

http://www.suphp.org/Home.html

Re:Not XML

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehm, whatever floats your boat. Look in \inetpub\adminscripts\ for samples.

Re:Not XML

[pete6677]

I always thought a config file would be easier to admin than IIS's illogical checkboxes scattered all over the place. What's the point of an admin GUI if I have to hunt through multiple dialog boxes in multiple places just to make one small change? Finally they are getting a clue. Now if they could just do away with the Windows registry...

Re:Not XML

[starwed]

Because previously, the server had gnomes which watched your monitor and told it when you had checked the box. And you're afraid that since the gnomes don't know XML, you'll have to modify configuration files by hand.

Luckily for you, I've heard that Microsoft will offer, for a modest fee, XML training courses designed especially for gnomes. ^_^

Re:Not XML

[greenskyx]

PerUser does this as well: http://www.telana.com/peruser.php

Re:Not XML

[Curtman]

He'll be rebooting his IIS box before you mess with your http.conf anyway I bet.

Re:Not XML

[DavidTC]

Or you could just do a 'graceful' restart. Leaving all open connections open, but closing the listening port and then restarting the server.

Yes, it's technically down for like a quarter second, but why I do suspect that IIS's non-response time on 'without restarting the web server' will be larger?

Re:Not XML

[dodobh]

Surely, killall -USR1 apache, or apachectl reload.

Does similar stuff, but doesn't interrupt current requests

Re:Not XML

[elemental23]

Or better yet, apachectl graceful.

so...

[intmainvoid]

so if IIS is just copying Apache... then remind me why should I choose IIS over Apache?

Re:so...

[FyRE666]

so if IIS is just copying Apache... then remind me why should I choose IIS over Apache?

Because it costs les... I mean, because the OS it runs on is more secu... Oops, I really meant, because people should support all the good things that MS do for the...

Sod it... Hey, O'Gara, you get paid good money to come up with this horse-shit - take it away, would you?

Re:so...

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

so if IIS is just copying Apache... then remind me why should I choose IIS over Apache>

Microsoft makes the best software in the world! Here, drink this Kool Aid!

Re:so...

[dioscaido]

asp.net w/ c# would be one reason. it's a fantastic dev platform, hatred for MS aside.

Re:so...

[Seumas]

Support contract (someone to blame). Recognized company (so management can't get blamed for going with a smaller guy).

Also, you have to remember that there are a lot of people out there operating with nothing more than an MCSE that don't know anything outside of the Microsoft world. Not everyone is trying to convince management to switch to Linux. A lot of shops want to stick with microsoft because that's what the tech guys making the recommendations are familiar with and they want to keep their jobs.

I don't really deal with Microsoft, but I've dealt with guys who clearly are solely Microsoft network/IT administrators who, when having to handle sending me a core file from one of their solaris boxes, didn't have a clue how to use FTP.

So... for a lot of people, the Microsoft Way and A GUI For Everything method is a means to remaining employed.

Re:so...

[SomeGuyTyping]

that's what Mono is for

Re:so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it ready for primetime? Last I benchmarked it, it wasn't close (looked like the garbage collector choked) to Microsofts version. But that was admittedly long time ago. And I think I remember readying somewhere that the GC still wouldn't reclaim memory from large objects (I forget the details). Do you have pointers to or expirience with comparisons of recent versions?

Re:so...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know... I'd rather stick with a solution like Java (server-side) than that. The reason? It's absolutely possible to take your Java applications and move them away from Apache to a different underlying webserver, but you cannot do the same thing with ASP and so on.

Once you're stuck with that, you're stuck with it forever - and that (dependency on a single vendor!) is something you should *always* try to avoid, no matter whether the vendor is M$ or IBM or Sun or whoever else.

Re:so...

[scatters]

Microsoft isn't just copying Apache. They're just finally getting clued in to the fact that there is the Microsoft way (read: click fest) and the sane way (read: config files).
I'm by no means a fan of Microsoft, but it's a little disingenuous to say that they're copying any one product because they're implementing a feature that they've probably gotten a lot of requests for.

My biggest problem with IIS (other than the click-fest management UI) is the fact that they stuck httpd.sys in the kernel, meaning that any exploits in that service would be pretty devestating. But it's ok, since the IIS evangelist at the TechEd 2002 IIS 6.0 pep rally said that there will not be any vulnerabilities in IIS6.0. Oh aye, I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and tastes like rainbow sherbert! (to quote Broken Lizard).

Re:so...

[killjoe]

I find asp.net awkward and kludgy. They tried to make web development like desktop development and in the process made it into an overly complicated, ugly, ungraceful stinking pile of cow feces.

I much prefer webobjects or even ruby on rails. ASP.NET is a pile.

Re:so...

[Anonymous Coward]

And you got +4 insightful for using inflammatory, useless comments? Great, moderators on drugs again.

Re:so...

[jerw134]

the IIS evangelist at the TechEd 2002 IIS 6.0 pep rally said that there will not be any vulnerabilities in IIS6.0. Oh aye, I'll believe that when me shit turns purple and tastes like rainbow sherbert!

He wasn't too far off... The two vulnerabilities that IIS6 has had in it's 2.5 years so far weren't even remotely serious. Do you really think that's going to change, and suddenly 100s of bugs will pop up overnight? Come on.

Re:so...

[slashdotnickname]

I much prefer webobjects or even ruby on rails. ASP.NET is a pile.

I think anyone that's done commerce-quality network programming for a while can see the real "pile" in your opinion.

From my own experience, RoR scales horribly both traffic-wise and when attempting to incorporate existing infrastructres with it, i.e. the "plays well with others" factor.

This is not meant to criticize the ruby community, for I do believe they're developing something powerful and cheer them on (like I cheer other great oss initiatives). I especially loved how fast you can prototype something. It's just not there yet for commercial purposes, and anyone not honest about that isn't helping its cause.

Re:so...

[killjoe]

"I think anyone that's done commerce-quality network programming for a while can see the real "pile" in your opinion."

Mmmm. Are you saying there are no commerce quality network programs written in webobjects? Perhaps you should take a look at the itunes store.

"From my own experience, RoR scales horribly both traffic-wise and when attempting to incorporate existing infrastructres with it, i.e. the "plays well with others" factor."

I don't doubt that this is your opinion knowing that you are a ASP.NET fan. They are so vastly different I don't think you would like anything about it.

Re:so...

[Anonymous Coward]

All right, but apart from being awkward, kludgy, overly complicated, ugly, ungraceful, and a stinking pile of cow feces, what's wrong with asp.net?

There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid the internet of IIS once and for all.

Re:so...

[scatters]

>Do you really think that's going to change, and suddenly 100s of bugs will pop up overnight?

No, but it's pretty arrogant to make such a claim, and pretty stupid to put a service that's exposed to the big scary internet in the kernel. All you need is for one buffer overflow to sneak past the code review and testing - and I don't like to point out the obvious, but it wouldn't be the first such vulnerability in a Microsoft product.
Even the OpenBSD guys don't claim that there will never be a vulnerability in their code, merely that there hasn't been on in the default install for x years - and they probably have one of the best track records out there.

Re:so...

[getwhipped]

asp.net w/ c# would be one reason. it's a fantastic dev platform, hatred for MS aside.

Was that sarcastic? Hatred for MS aside, I had a terrible time programming in ASP.NET w/ C#. It could have been Visual Studio, or maybe it was just me...

Re:so...

[Owndapan]

Not sure how this got to +5 without one "troll" mod... I respect your opinion, but surely to be modded "insightful" the post should at least include some reasons for asp.net being a "pile". Sorry, I'll stop complaining about mods now, not your fault :)

ASP.NET is not perfect, but it can do some neat things. Initialise controls and layout your presentation in X/HTML and ASPX tags, then control them via code. What so hard about that? It's fine to prefer other technologies, but I don't think ASP.NET qualifies as a "pile". The original ASP, now there you've got a case!

Re:so...

[dedazo]

You can do it all by hand... with notepad or vim or Emacs if that's your thing. Visual Studio is not required for ASP.NET development - not even for debugging. You never have to actually deal with the designer if you don't want to.

Oh... you didn't know that, did you? Just blabbering out of your ass to prove that anything related to Microsoft is a 'pile'.

I'm shocked. Shocked I say.

Re:so...

[killjoe]

Notice that I said nothing about visual studio. why are you blathering on about that?

Re:so...

[killjoe]

i will explain it to you. ASP.NET attempts to morph the web development paradigm into the desktop development paradigm and in doing so adds a horribly complicated and inelegant structure to the whole process.

Compare ASP.NET to webobjects, tapestry, Ruby on rails etc and you will be struck by their elegance, coherence and beauty. Compared to them ASP.NET is indeed a pile (to my eyes anyway).

ASP.NET is basically aimed at VB developers who are used to working with a certain paradigm.

Re:so...

[Owndapan]

Thanks for the explanation. I don't really see why making web development more like desktop development is a problem -- having event-driven web pages and persisting state between posts, all in an encapsulated OO-style, is actually really handy. But I guess we can agree to disagree. :)

By the way, if you hate ASP.NET you are going to loathe Avalon. It is basically WebForms with presentation markup in XML files (like an .aspx), and then with the "code-behind" file for wiring up events. It is basically ASP.NET but with a proprietary markup language, instead of built around HTML/XHTML.

Re:so...

[killjoe]

"By the way, if you hate ASP.NET you are going to loathe Avalon."

I have no plans to go anywhere near it. I was forced to use ASP.NET and VB.NET for a while and I quit after six months. Every day when I went to work I literally felt like sticking toothpics underneath my fingernails to mitigate the pain VB.net and ASP.NET were causing me. I would rather be shackled in a dungeon rather then go back to that house of horrors.

Re:so...

[delus10n0]

Then what are you talking about? ASP.Net moves from ASP's beginnings, into a more "true" OOP language. C#.Net is an excellent language, and anyone can write it and compile it _for free_, and that includes use on web applications.

Re:so...

[ceeam]

With what other web development platforms do you have extensive experience?

Re:so...

[dedazo]

i will explain it to you. ASP.NET attempts to morph the web development paradigm into the desktop development paradigm and in doing so adds a horribly complicated and inelegant structure to the whole process

Ahhhh... the event model. The ViewState thing. Yes. Of course an elitist retard like yourself would consider those to be "complicated and inelegant", but since you continue to post your uninformed idiotic bullshit 'opinions', I'll explain it to you. The WebForm model in ASP.NET is built on top of a bunch of HTTP request handler interfaces, which can use regex or wildcard-based pipe redirection and processing depending on context or content. So you can always design your own paradigm on top of that infrastructure. Or, you can get one of the frameworks out there that already do that. The WebForm thing is the entry-level, target the 80% developer base and make them productive. It's called 'the OOB experience', I'm sure you've heard of it. For the rest of us there's the powerful stuff underneath that can be easily extended.

Heck, maybe even you could come up with something that has your three fav buzzwords - "elegance coherence and beauty", though I seriously doubt you've written a line of non-application code in your life.

Hope that helps.

Re:so...

[aztracker1]

IIRC the memory isn't released to other programs, but the environment will still reuse it.. it's okay for testing, and maybe development.. for the cost, get Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, and avoid the headaches... combined with Postgres8, works great.. :) I'm looking forward to a mono deployment that works as solid as .Net w/ IIS... kinda sad that MS is more stable in this case.

Re:so...

[aztracker1]

Can't speak for the GP post, but I've used JSP, PHP4-5, CFM, Classic ASP (vbs and js), and back when a bit of Livewire... imho ASP.Net is about the nicest environment to work with.. mainly because the entire framework is available to web applications...

as far as flexibility I would say JSP/J2EE is the closest, as far as ease PHP is the closest... I like the environment though, learned with the command line compilers, and using a programmers editor (crimson)... so understand how it works, and why... just updated my bbs website to a new skin, and xhtml compliance (a little painfull with v1.1, used a custom webcontrol descended from form... that wasn't too bad, and it's pretty well together at this point... working on the chat interface tomorrow.. that will be more javascript/xhttprequest stuff than .net though... but will interface to asp.net and want to have an irc gateway with it.... far more difficult in any other web environment.

Re:so...

[aztracker1]

grr... corrected url for the bbs grr... sorry.. :/

Re:so...

[LinuxPoultergist]

I have experience writing web apps with both ASP.NET and Java.

I used ASP.NET for about 2 years at my previous job. I recently moved and we use Java at my new job. I've found Java web apps much easier to deploy and maintain. The great thing about Java is the .war file. Microsoft should take a lesson. I've spent countless hours trying to get an ASP.NET website moved from one server to another. Sure it's easy if all you have are a few forms, but I'm talking moderate sized enterprise type apps. ASP.NET is a nightmare when it comes to deployment.

If you're an ASP.NET user, you might check out Java, Tomcat, and a little server side filter called SiteMesh.

Belive me I've been there and done that and life with Java is much better.

Re:so...

[Gigs]

Please check out MonoRail Framework, its part of the Castle Project... its a development framework for asp.net that allows you to use templates instead of webforms. A much easier and cleaner implementation to develop and maintain IMHO. It also has libs builtin to give you AJAX / Ruby on Rails functionality.

Re:so...

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

I hope Microsoft hits a home run with Indigo, and Avalon, and browser based clients finally start to the move to Smart Clients. Until now, its been too hard to write a good smart client on windows.

Re:so...

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

I'm curious to hear why your experience with it was so terrible. Seriously. I've worked on the Whidbey team and am always willing to listen to sugestions, even critism if they have a valid point. I'd also be interested to hear whats make you language of choic so much better then asp.net.

Re:so...

[getwhipped]

Well...

I'm the usual open-source advocate (like most slashdotters), so I'm a little biased. When I had to do a project in C#/ASP.NET, it was terrible. Most of the problem came from huge amount of public variables, that had names like "Controls", and "Text" (consider the html table class -- I'm not sure of the name). What do these do? If you don't know, there's nothing to infer from these -- if I add something, what happens? If you add both (considering the table class), which takes precidence? Do they both show up? Will an exception be throw? (NO!). As well, in contrast with PHP, the documentation is horrible. I couldn't go to the MSDN website and find all the details of the class I was working with -- usually, I got a "This is how it's instanciated" and maybe some small example. I didn't get any in and out details about what adding a control to the table may do, and what I could do with it afterwards. Of course, some programming is left to experience, this was not helpful at all. From a fully funded product like C# and ASP.NET, I'd expect much better documentation than that -- documentation that I don't have to pay for, and not rely on a 3rd party book to tell me. Good documentation should come from Microsoft.

Now, this is not to mention the fight with Visual Studio to make the WYSIWYG editor do what I want... but that's a different story.

I hope this helps.

hrm....

[xao gypsie]

but I thought OSS was evil....or was that Google...

How about multiple versions?

[fuzzy12345]

Can you install two different versions of IIS and have them run on different ports and/or addresses? Install or uninstall without rebooting? Change or inspect the source code?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Alan]

Hell, I'd like a version that I can run without a GUI. Wake me up when they get that going ok?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[man_of_mr_e]

Why would you WANT to run two different versions of Apache? Other than, perhaps, if you're hacking on the source.

You can have as many sites running as you like under different ports and addresses in a single version of IIS or Apache.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Atzanteol]

Why would you WANT to run two different versions of Apache?

I believe the appropriate question is: Why can't you run two different versions of IIS? Maybe one writes a web-portal or some such that will need to be run in different versions of IIS? Who knows?

It is to the user to decide what they want to do with software, not the developers.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[hab136]

Why would you WANT to run two different versions of Apache? Other than, perhaps, if you're hacking on the source.

You can have as many sites running as you like under different ports and addresses in a single version of IIS or Apache.

I can think of three reasons: speed, simplicity and security. Say, one web server that only serves up static files, nothing more - and is fast at it, with a locked-down configuration. Another for dynamic content, with all the complications that ensue.

Ideally, you'd put these webservers on separate boxes (or farms of boxes), but budgets may dicatate that they share a box. Personally I'd also use thttpd for the only-static portion, as it's faster, simpler, and easier to secure.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[fuzzy12345]

Why would you WANT to run two different versions?

Thanks for a perfect example of the type of thinking which will keep IIS and other Microsoft type stuff in the dust. Rather than just doing the job, software that checks for other versions of itself, because of programmers with attitudes like yours, inhibits the flexibility of people like me.

I'm not going to answer your question, because if you can't figure it out yourself, you are undeserving of enlightenment. Suffice to say that I do, I can, and I have good reasons.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[hkb]

Can you install two different versions of IIS and have them run on different ports and/or addresses?

What would be the need? Using the latest and greatest is the smart choice for 99.9999% of the people.

Install or uninstall without rebooting?

You can already do that.

Change or inspect the source code?

Of course not, and I don't really care. I have no care whether IIS is open source or not, but I imagine you'll conjure up Bill Gates as Satan and vomit in disgust at anything closed-source. As we all know, using closed source products is blasphemous!

Re:How about multiple versions?

[hkb]

IIS runs without a GUI. You can configure it* without a GUI by editing the XML config file. Have been able to since IIS6. 'Bout time to wake up and get a clue, don't you think?

I won't completely flame you for sounding like a Windows-ignorant Linux zealot, because you're a fellow climber.

* Although why the hell would you want to?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[trendyhendy]

Hell, you'll be able to run the SEVEN different versions of IIS they're bringing out, including Home IIS, Home Pro IIS, Enterprise IIS, Ultra IIS, and Super-Fun-Happy IIS!

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Example? As far as I know, IIS requires Windows to run, which in turn requires explorer.exe to be running.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Phillup]

Because you want to run different versions of the web app you wrote (and are still writing) and to make things really fast lots of information is shared amongst all of the apache children. (Like cached database result sets)

Each version may be different for different customers, for example.

And you want to do it all on one machine because as a developer you are trying to make a living actually writing the software, not run it in a production facility.

But, the different versions of the app use different databases... and the shared data is different.

So, you can only run one version of the app at a time on/with an apache process.

Solution: configure multiple apache processes running off of different ports with a common apache proxy frontend and some rewrite rules to send the request to the correct backend process.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[hkb]

Firstly, I got from the parent poster's comment that he wrongly thought that the IIS process required GUI components to run and use it.

Secondly, Windows doesn't require explorer.exe to run at all. However it does require "the GUI" to run, because several core system services require the Win32 api to run.

This can be hacked, but why would you want to? The GUI uses no appreciable levels of CPU or RAM to just sit there. If one is so anal about it, they could run cmd.exe at full screen or just stay on Linux.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[man_of_mr_e]

That is a very complicated solution to a simple problem.

You can very easily run each version of your web app in different virutal sites in the same apache instance. You're going to have be convince me as to why it's necessary to run them under different instances.

Unlike Apache, IIS is far more configurable about it's "Application Pools" and can run them all as different uesrs, or different configurations or different security.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[gomoX]

Different incompatible modules. E.g mod_php4, mod_php5, mod_python 2.7/3.1. Some of them can't run together, some of them only run on Apache 1.3 or 2.0.

Don't remove flexibility unless you get something out of it that outweighs the lack thereof.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[man_of_mr_e]

No, I'm just asking why you would want to. Let me rephrase that as "Why should you HAVE to"?

I can't think of any situation where you would have to run two instances of apache or IIS to solve a problem. Sure, I can understand the "Because I WANT to, dammit" argument, but does doing that really solve any problems you can't do in a single instance?

Not that I can think of anyways.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[man_of_mr_e]

You're logic is faulty. Your box is only as secure as its weakest link. If your dynamic site is compromised, it can compromise your entire computer, including your locked down site. This gives you a false sense of security.

Yes, with Apache you have to run multiple instances of Apache to run it under different user credentials, but not so with IIS. Each application can run with its own credentials.

And i don't consider managing multiple servers more "simple" than managing one.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[man_of_mr_e]

That sounds more like a limitation of Apache to me. There are similar limitations with IIS (some stuff doesn't work under IIS6), but I consider that either a) a fault of the application and it should be fixed or b) a fault of the web server that should be fixed.

I've always considered Apache's modules to be too loosely versioned. one module can't specify to use a specific version of another module. Apache should be enhanced to provide that functionality rather than force users to jump through hoops.

This argument is like "Well, my apps crash when run on an OS that utilizes an MMU to control memory management, so those OS's suck and i'll just run my app on two different physical PC's to solve it".

Re:How about multiple versions?

[nimid]

I'm all for Open Source but really...

Can you install two different versions of IIS and have them run on different ports and/or addresses?

I can't even begin to think what use this could be. Would 10% of the user base use it?

Install or uninstall without rebooting?

How often does a developer, really need to install and uninstall a webserver? Would this be used by even 5% of the userbase? Change or inspect the source code?

This is a point worth making but realistically, the people who are going to be using IIS were never going to be the ones who would be able to make use of this facility and all in all, these solutions sound like they're looking for a problem.

Let's be fair, it does sound like Microsoft have listened to their users and implemented changes that were wanted, changes that would be useful to the vast majority of users.

Perhaps it's time we reconsidered our 'if you want it, code it yourself' philosphy and give users what they want too?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[jerw134]

You can't run two different versions of IIS because there is no real reason to do so. You can sit here and come up with fantasy answers all day, but show me one single real-world example of someone having the need to run two different versions of IIS on the same server.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for mentioning Application Pools. This was one of the biggest and best improvements in IIS6. And yet so many people don't seem to fully grasp the power of AppPools.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[BrowserCapsGuy]

I guess I have a lot to learn about /. moderation. I figured by posting as AC I could mod you Informative and still offer an opinion. Oh well. Live and learn. I still think your comment about AppPools is the best comment in this entire thread.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[jsight]

Since apparently it wasn't obvious, perhaps you are running multiple apps that each require different versions of the web server (ie, one is old and requires Apache 1.x, but you prefer 2.x for everything else)?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[hab136]

You're logic is faulty. Your box is only as secure as its weakest link. If your dynamic site is compromised, it can compromise your entire computer, including your locked down site. This gives you a false sense of security.

If your dynamic+static site is compromised, it can compromise your entire computer - no different. I'm saying it's easier to lock down static content. You are still left with the same task of securing the dynamic content, as you are with a single dynamic+static site.

Yes, with Apache you have to run multiple instances of Apache to run it under different user credentials, but not so with IIS. Each application can run with its own credentials.

Who's talking about user credentials? I was talking about limiting extra features (like CGI, PHP, indexing, etc) in the server configuration.

And i don't consider managing multiple servers more "simple" than managing one.

You can have a server that is configured to not do CGI/indexing/PHP/etc in certain image directories, but do them in others.. or two configs. It's about the same amount of work, but in the separate server scenario, you are assured that the extra functions will never be accessed, because the static server isn't able to do them.

People make mistakes. If you accidently enable indexing in a directory that isn't supposed to have it, the single server scenario will happily allow it. In the two-server scenario, since you don't have the indexing module loaded on the static server, the misconfiguration will have no effect (and will probably throw an error alerting you).

Again, I'm not talking about just permissions; I'm talking about disabling extra server features. It's the same principle as removing unneeded network services on a machine.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[glitch23]

You can, in fact, install IIS without rebooting, same with uninstalling.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[nzkbuk]

I think what the parent is meaning is you can't run BOTH php4 AND php5 or both verions of python in the same apache instance.

from my experiance you can use either version of php with either version of apache (haven't tried with python but would expect similar).

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Mo Bedda]

I haven't worked on IIS for a long time, but have they ever changed anything which made web apps not run between versions? If you have a large web app which needs to be ported to the new version of IIS, allowing both versions to run side by side would allow you to do the migration with half as many machines.

This feature would also be useful if you wanted to write a web app which would reliably install and run under multiple versions of IIS. The number of machines required for QA could be reduced signifcantly.

Or, simply to run a patched and unpatched version to test security patches.

You can probably run different versions of IIS on one machine with something like VMWARE.

IIS works this way because Microsoft gets to sell you more copies of Windows. There is no real reason Microsoft would want you to run two copies of their "free" web server on one machine, but there are reasons a user might. I think it is pretty much a "one per customer" sort of thing.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[glwtta]

You're going to have be convince me as to why it's necessary to run them under different instances.

Usually multiple instances of apache are more of a resource management/allocation thing. Say you have a mod_perl server and a tomcat server, the static server for both is served by a "plain" apache server and the whole thing is reverse-proxied through a fourth. These servers are going to have very different memory footprints, number of children, requests per child, etc.

Often it's just convenient to compartmentalize different parts of an application into different servers, you can change backend components without the users noticing and if you need to bounce one, it doesn't affect the rest of the system. Especially during development.

Unlike Apache, IIS is far more configurable about it's "Application Pools" and can run them all as different uesrs, or different configurations or different security.

Eh, virtual hosts do all that.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[ModMeFlamebait]

Yes, with Apache you have to run multiple instances of Apache to run it under different user credentials

No, you don't.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[clare-ents]

How about developing an application for end users that runs on IIS6 and IIS5 and IIS7 and before releasing it wanting to test it?

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Atzanteol]

Fantasy answers? How about a development machine that is used by different projects that use different versions of IIS? What if you simply want to test code on both versions of IIS? Why should I need *two bloody machines* to do that?

I'm a consultant. I do work for multiple clients. I currently on my desktop have two versions of Eclipse installed for separate projects. I also have two versions of VirtualPC for different VM's (apparently images for older versions aren't compatible after MS bought it). I had two versions of SQL Server for separate projects at one point. But if I work a project that required IIS 6, and then also take on some work for a project running IIS 7 I can't do that?

That's just stupid and you know it. It's the same reason we have separate machines at work just for different versions of IE to test web pages with. It's just plain short-sighted and stupid.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about development purposes, with all developers sharing one dev server but each running their own instances of Apache so they don't stomp on each other? (Real-world example from a previous job.)

Re:How about multiple versions?

[aftermath09]

Can you install two versions of IE, and run them at the same time? Install or uninstall without rebooting? This has always been the annoying thing about microsoft. They have gotten better with backup/out points, but this is why MS should've been broken up.

Re:How about multiple versions?

[jhantin]

Aha! So that is why they are modularizing IIS. Makes it easier to subtract value for lower price points.

Copy Cat

[sheepoo]

Is M$ becoming a mass copy store...First Firefox (for IE7.0) then Apple OS X (for Vista) and now Apache (for IIS). Are they going out of business of innovation?

Re:Copy Cat

[Saiyine]

Are they going out of business of innovation?

Well, to go out you first have to have been in!

--
Superb hosting 4800MB Storage, 120GB bandwidth, $7,95.
Kunowalls!!! Random sexy wallpapers (NSFW!).

Re:Copy Cat

[fembots]

And its Gadgets vs Yahoo's Widgets and Apple's Dashboard.

Re:Copy Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they going out of business of innovation?

The problem is that they were enough ahead of everyone else they quit innovating. Now they've finally realized that everyone else has surpassed them and it's catchup time.

Re:Copy Cat

[skraps]

These IIS changes are directly in line with Microsoft's .NET architecture. They may sound similar to some Apache features, but that is probably not the driving force behind them.

Re:Copy Cat

[MrDomino]

They were in the business of innovation?

Re:Copy Cat

[bedouin]

Is M$ becoming a mass copy store...First Firefox (for IE7.0) then Apple OS X (for Vista) and now Apache (for IIS). Are they going out of business of innovation?

Where have you been for the last 20+ years? Microsoft has never tried an 'outside the box' idea in their life.

Re:Copy Cat

[vijaya_chandra]

Can you please let us know as to what all things are being copied from firefox?
I haven't used IE7.0 so I can't comment
but if you're going to say that they're flicking tabbing and rss, I'll have to say sorry (probably at the expense of some karma). Neither did firefox invent them; guys like opera have been having them from ages
And did I mention that the tabbing in firefox is far from perfect. Guess you'd have been to atleast one of those innumerable sites, the links in which always tend to open new firefox windows and not tabs

Re:Copy Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Bob

Clippy

Re:Copy Cat

[HermanAB]

Huh? MS is just doing what they are good at - copy the competion - that is their business model - always was - still is.

Re:Copy Cat

[MedManDC]

Don't forget Microsoft Bob!

Re:Copy Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Were they ever in the business of inovation?

Windows == MacOS from years ago
DOS == CP/M from years ago
Visual Studio == Borland Turbo C++ etc from years ago.

Embrace and extend!

Re:Copy Cat

[camcorder]

Well of course open source applications get ideas from other softwares. But at the end they are free to use. In Microsoft's case, they get the idea from an open system, copy the feature, advertise ideas to masses and obligatory Profit!!!

Re:Copy Cat

[sharkey]

It even trickles down to their daily meetings and actions taken for emphasis.

Re:Copy Cat

[MarkRose]

You mean, they were in the business of innovation?

Re:Copy Cat

[cerelib]

Microsoft is not a business of innovation. It is a business of providing platforms. I know this might be a surprise, but they are not pushing scientific and social limits with their software. They make an operating system which is a platform for both hardware and software developers to aim products at. The rest just spawns from there (DirectX, Windows Media). On top of that, could you imagine if nobody ever copied anybody else in the software world? Wouldn't everybody be using Netscape or some earlier kin? MS makes IE, probably mostly a copy of Netscape, then Firefox copies IE and adds some new stuff. MS sees that people like the new stuff, so they add it. You know you would probably criticize them if they did not add tabbed browsing to IE7. Take a look at the OSS world, there are a lot of projects that are simply copies of commercial software but they add x feature and are deemed innovators. Apple bought an OS from a company who took much of their OS from an OSS OS. And so the ride goes around. Don't you wish that you computer said "Designed for Xerox Windows" instead?

Re:Copy Cat

[ClosedSource]

Actually, MS thought "outside the box" when they designed Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) in 1996. MTS was a run-time environment for middle-tier components and Sun was so impressed with it they incorporated its basic ideas into EJB which was released 3 years later.

Re:Copy Cat

[dago]

remember that they are 2 definitions to the word innovation.

Security?

[WindBourne]

Here is to hope that security will be job #1, rather than job #10.

Re:Security?

[Anonymous Coward]

Job #10 huh... Is that in binary or decimal =P

Awesome

[Agent_9191]

That definitely will help in the future. I know there's been several times I've had to fight the metabase to get it to work correctly.

Oh yeah...and it helps get the first post :-)

Re:Awesome

[Spy der Mann]

(about 30 posts later...)
Oh yeah...and it helps get the first post :-)

You just reminded me how late it took Microsoft to adopt these features :-)

Re:Awesome

[seanvaandering]

Oh yeah...and it helps get the first post :-)

Do me a favor and hit refresh please...

Erm

[Vlad_Drak]

IIS 6.0 utilized an editable-during-runtime xml configuration file, metabase.xml. The new stuff is more integrated into a .Net Framework style config.

A wiser man than me once said:

[caluml]

Henry Spencer

"Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -- badly".

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[DA-MAN]

Henry Spencer

"Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -- badly".

Repeat after me, Apache is not UNIX. Apache is a web server. It's a web server that's not even exclusive to the UNIX world since it runs on Windows.

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[caluml]

What?
A daemon that reads it's config from text files rather than a nasty database is certainly more UNIX-like than it is Windows-like. Not to say sensible.
Also, Microsoft are doing lots more UNIX-like things recently, if you care to find out about them.

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Yeah, Windows never used text files for configuring apps.

cat >slashdot.ini http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tool s/logparser/default.mspx)"

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

sigh, remind me to preview because slashdots "plain old text" is more like "screw up your post that was plain old text".

--
Yeah, Windows never used text files for configuring apps.

cat >slashdot.ini <<__EOF__
[Slashdotpost]
Sarcastic=1
MyAssholishness="Unneeded"
__EOF__

Microsoft has a lot of good devs, and a lot of good marketers. So while windows has always had some really great features, they never bothered to market them because it doesnt help sell it, and anyone that cares will find out about it on their own. Contrast to the OSS community, which has no marketers, so all you see is what is there.
Example:

Microsoft marketers: "DOS is dead!"
Microsoft devels: "Parse your text files/filesystem/system events/anything with SQL like syntax (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/too ls/logparser/default.mspx)"

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[DA-MAN]

A daemon that reads it's config from text files rather than a nasty database is certainly more UNIX-like than it is Windows-like.

Yep just like sendmail, oh wait . . .

Look Apache may have its roots in UNIX but it is NOT UNIX! It's as much UNIX as Microsoft Office is Windows only (keep in mind that Crossover + Mac OSX exist). That's all I am saying.

Also, Microsoft are doing lots more UNIX-like things recently, if you care to find out about them.

Actually I know what Microsoft has been doing. A lot of this stuff started when Hotmail was first converted off of FreeBSD. In fact, many of the recommendations are coming verbatim from the migration team.

Regardless, Windows will never be UNIX enough for me. And since there is OSX (my laptop), FreeBSD (my server) and Linux (my desktop), I could give a rats ass what Microsoft does.

Re:A wiser man than me once said:

[zlogic]

Not badly but poorly is the original version.
My favorite quote by the way, can be applied to anything, including non-UNIX stuff (Windows), post-UNIX stuff(SCO, HP-UX, etc.) and UNIX-related stuff (Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, etc.)

If I remember correctly...

[youknowmewell]

When one installs a new module in Apache, one needs to restart the server for the install to take effect. That is, when I install PHP or PostgreSQL, I need to restart Apache before I can use either of them. This is something many Apache users dislike.

Re:If I remember correctly...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Oh come on. When you install SQL Server, you have to reboot. New installations of infrastructure are a different matter than deploying a new virtual directory.

Re:If I remember correctly...

[hattig]

God forbid I have to type 'apachectl graceful' ever.

But yes, it would be neat if Apache allowed you to switch in/out modules as you pleased. 'apachectl addmodule php' or 'apachectl dropmodule index' or whatever.

Re:If I remember correctly...

[The Bungi]

Oh come on. When you install SQL Server, you have to reboot.

Actually, you normally don't. If you have a reasonably up to date server or workstation and the SQL Server install doesn't need to update MDAC for example, then there is no reboot at all. This is true for W2KSP2+, WinXP (no SPs) and a default, off-CD install of Server 2003 (any flavor). SQL2K is a relatively 'clean' server product - unlike, say, BT2004 (though 2006 is a lot better). There are very few install scenarios for MS products nowadays that require a cold reboot. You can also add/remove server components (including IIS and MSMQ) without rebooting or even restarting a single service on the box.

To give you an idea, isntalling Visual Studio 2003 on a Windows 2000 SP3 box requires three (!) reboots (though granted, they can be automated). On Server 2003 (in the worstation role) it doesn't require a single reboot. It's really about what you have on the box to begin with, and what the product needs to update.

Re:If I remember correctly...

[nzkbuk]

Well alot of the time you can get away with a graceful reload

Re:If I remember correctly...

[DavidTC]

Neat? Yes.

Useful? No.

How many people here run a production webserver that it's important it's not down at any particular time? (I don't mean can't ever be down, I just mean it's bad if it is down.) Show of hands.

Now, how many times have you altered the loaded modules in Apache in the last year? (Setting up a new install doesn't count.)

Me. And, I think...four times. Two, one off and one on, screwing with mod_dav, one to turn on mod_info, and one for mod_suexec. Maybe a few more I can't recall.

With a graceful restart, the webserver doesn't respond to new requests for maybe half a second, and all the old connections keep working. (Thus, with keep-alive, every web page finishes downloading.) It is simply not important enough to screw around with loading modules on the fly to skip that half a second.

Why? Well, for one thing, how could you configure them? Modules need to be loaded when parsing the config file. (A fun Catch-22, considering that's where the module list is, but they seem to have that working.)

Now, yes, loadable modules would be fun for people who screw around with apache, instead of run it seriously, but those people are exactly the people who don't need seven 9s of uptime, or even three 9s.

However, that sort of logic is unrelated to what code gets written. The question is: Is any Apache dev willing to spend days writing code to keep himself from a half second uptime? I rather doubt it.

Re:If I remember correctly...

[tidge]

What are you talking about?

I installed SQL Server just the other day and didn't need a reboot.
I'm running Server 2003 though.

Heh!

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

For his example, he changes a directory listing into a FLASHY WIZBANG DIRECTORY LISTING??? Wow, good job creating useful modules

1996 Called

[Anonymous Coward]

...they want their webserver back. =)

THIS JUST IN - IIS 6.0 does most of that crap

[BattleRat]

wow, I guess that most slashdotters REALLY hate MS enough to not even know the characteristics of their current offerings...

Re:THIS JUST IN - IIS 6.0 does most of that crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, what's most important here? Hatin on MS or understanding before spewing crap? You guessed it!

Re:THIS JUST IN - IIS 6.0 does most of that crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, your logic circuits are broken.

Phrase it "wow, I guess that most slashdotters don't care about MS stuff enough to not even know the characteristics of their current offerings..."

Re:THIS JUST IN - IIS 6.0 does most of that crap

[glwtta]

wow, I guess that most slashdotters REALLY hate MS enough to not even know the characteristics of their current offerings...

Well, yeah. MS is not a consideration for any of my projects (I tend to choose places to work with that in mind), so I don't really need to know about their offerings.

I don't think my hatred of them ('them' being the corporate entity, not the products nor most of the people behind it) is irrational or unfounded, so what's the problem?

So basically they learned

[spidereyes]

fierce resistance against the U.S. government and how to tax everyone else...hmmm I think M$ already had that down.

Mod parent up

[cnettel]

Finally something pointing this out. However, it's still monolithic (not completely true if combined with ASP.NET, but still), so the point is more that the config can be located together with the files. On the other hand, this requires that you have properly secured a greater number of config files, if you allow it.

It's always been a copy cat...

[jimmer63]

This is one of the major ways Microsft has stayed on top. The are great at collecting the best ideas from many sources and implementing them in their own software. Often implementing these ideas better than the orginal. Microsoft isn't stupid. They're always watching the market to learn how to do things better.

Re:It's always been a copy cat...

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source was built around the idea of stealing other software's ideas and reimplementing them. From GNU, which was originally was created to reimplement UNIX, and Linux, a reimplementation of the kernel, to OpenOffice, which is a GUI rip off and has stolen many formats, and GAIM, which has stolen many protocols. It's all lifted from others.

Now I'm not saying GNU or Linux or OpenOffice or GAIM was somehow wrong in what they did. No. I'm saying you are being extremely ignorant.

No restarts either

[DigitlDud]

This has been true for past versions of IIS, you don't have to restart the server when you make a configuration change...unlike say Apache. Although of course you have .htaccess for those minor directory-level changes.

Re:No restarts either

[Sique]

Restart Apache? There is always "bin/apachectl graceful".
And if that doesn't work (I have taken over an installation where Apache isn't allowed to write a pid file...), "pkill -HUP httpd" still causes Apache to reread its configuration without a restart.

Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[Johnno74]

... At TechEd New Zealand. IIS7 looks really smart, with pluggable modules to provide all of its functionality, as the submitted mentioned. Ouf of the box pretty much everything will be disabled, and you enable only the modules you need.

IIS6 (win 2003) has already done away with the metabase and gone to an XML file for all of the configuration settings.

IIS7 goes one further, by allowing you to put configuration files in each virtual directory or website to over-ride the parent setting (if permitted) - this allows a website owner to configure their own website, without affecting the other websites on the box, or having to ask the administrator to make the changes for them.

The MS guy told me they are trying to make management as easy as possible for servers containing thousands of seperate sites. He also said they hope to release IIS7 for Win2003 R2.

Loads of other management things are coming in too, such as the ability to examine currently execting requests, and kill them without restarting the site or server (VERY usefull if a script is looping)

MS's new approach to security seems to be really paying off - IIS6 was re-written from the ground up, and how many security holes have there been? I can't remember any.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[SocietyoftheFist]

I've been taking care of an Win2k3/IIS6 combo and to be honest, I've been quite happy with it.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[Anonymous Coward]

There was one a year ago, a DOS in WebDAV (a component not installed by default).

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[sparkz]

this allows a website owner to configure their own website, without affecting the other websites on the box, or having to ask the administrator to make the changes for them.

Ah - you mean .htaccess

Now that's what I call innovation :-)

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[nzkbuk]

The MS guy told me they are trying to make management as easy as possible for servers containing thousands of seperate sites. He also said they hope to release IIS7 for Win2003 R2.

Puts on asbestos oversuit. Hundreds, ok, yes a few hundred. Thousand or thousands. Yea right.

Sorry but windows has too much overhead esp. with all the bits they try to add from frontpage to asp.net. Someone has got to be smoking somethign really strong if they think they can get 1k+ sites on a windows box.

As for the this allows a website owner to configure their own website Can anyone say .htaccess ?

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[Asphixiat]

so does IIS 7.0 still cache "post" requests?

Apache's configuration for mass sites (using rewrites) needs clearer documentation, but once you get it, you only need to do it once, then you just add a site to the text file/database, and put the site anywhere you want on the disk.....simple really.

And how often are you installing new modules to the webserver....I mean really. If IIS wants to play with the big boys - make it HTTP 1.1 compliant (caching post requests is not HTTP 1.1 compliant) then give me a web server that doesn't leak memory, doesn't hook into parts of the kernel it has no reason to be hooking into, and can scale with load (so I can just chuck in another processor, more RAM etc, and scale up properly) - there are a lot of reasons Apache is the #1 webserver.

IBM knows it, Sun knows it: even MS knows it.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[glwtta]

ability to examine currently execting requests, and kill them without restarting the site or server (VERY usefull if a script is looping)

I don't get why this would be a big deal? Guess I don't know much about how threaded servers behave, but it seems like access to the worker pool is something that would be there from the beginning.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[delus10n0]

Noo, it's called a fancier version of web.config -- if you install the ASP.Net v2.0 Beta, you can start goofing around with similiar functionality today. There's even a web interface for setting it up locally or remotely.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[delus10n0]

We did it on Windows 2000, at a previous job I had. They were insane for cramming that many sites onto one server, but it did work, and it worked "fast enough".

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[Allador]

An application pool runs under an isolated process.

Multiple threads (configurable) service requests for this pool, in a pooled, as-available fashion.

So in the current system, you have visibility into the application pools, and you can see how many threads are servicing requests, there is no mechanism to make a given (hung or misbehaving) request visible and killable.

Now granted, this is a very minor feature, as if a typical asp or asp.net script is looping or hung, it'll either time out or be terminated by the system as a misbehaving execution.

So its nice, but the times when you need this granularity is rare.

In fact, the only times I've seen where it would be useful would be in killing runaway perl processes running under IIS. Currently, its difficult to figure out what script, or what request is looping/hung, and there is no automatic timeout for perl scripts or processes.

Re:Saw a demo of it a few weeks ago..

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

A big problem for WebServers like IIS, and Apache is rouge modules that have there own thread pools that are behaving poorly. Newere version of IIS take more controll over how modules are executing in IIS address space. I'm sure Apache does the same.

Ummm... patents?

[Anonymous Custard]

Did anyone at Apache remember to patent hot-swappable web server modules?

Re:Ummm... patents?

[greg_barton]

Did anyone at Apache remember to patent hot-swappable web server modules?

Why do that? Isn't the point of open source the spread of technology ideas? So what if the evil empire uses Apache's server fu? It's their right, just as it's your right.

Re:Ummm... patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but I'm sure M$ will try to patent hot-swappable web server modules, just give them time.

Re:Ummm... patents?

[kupci]

Why do that?

Uh, probably it was a joke - but don't laugh. And you wouldn't be if you were Apple and Microsoft patented the ipod technology. Which they did apparently.

Microsoft and other companies have a tendency of patenting everything they can, sometimes whether or not there was prior art etc. In fact, I bet we have patented hot-swappable modules, I'm going to send this over to the legal dept, Apache lawyers will be hearing from us soon... ;)

Re:Ummm... patents?

[Anonymous Custard]

"Why do that? Isn't the point of open source the spread of technology ideas? So what if the evil empire uses Apache's server fu? It's their right, just as it's your right."

You mean APACHE uses MICROSOFT's server fu. MS has the patent.

This was a half joke but a half truth. Whenever I hear of a big commercial entity getting the same features as a not-so-commercial entity, I expect they went back in time and filed a patent to steal it.

Re:Ummm... patents?

[Kjella]

Why do that?

Cross-licensing would be nice. So would a royalty/license fee to boost development. While OSS isn't about money, it doesn't exactly hurt either.

Text Conf Files for Windows

[Foofoobar]

I've heard Windows advocates make fun of me for running Apache and configging a text file. Now the irony is that they themselves will have to do the same thing.

But this could be a positive. Windows developers and sys admins may find it an easy transition from GUI- system administration to file based and thus wil find Linux and Apache a bit less daunting.

If this keeps changing like this, you could see Windows system administration moving more toward *NIX administration principles.

This could be a good thing in alot of ways.

Re:Text Conf Files for Windows

[vcv]

No they won't. There is still a GUI tool to write the config files for you.

Re:Text Conf Files for Windows

[Trevahaha]

The data is stored in an XML file. It would allow you to edit the XML file directly (instead of an internal DB), but I'm sure that most (if not all) would be able to be configured via a GUI.

Re:Text Conf Files for Windows

[istartedi]

No, they'll just use something like this to edit it, or more likely some MS GUI tool.

IIS and XML metabase

[Anonymous Coward]

has been around since IIS6.

IP theft Sue!!!

[xmorg]

IP THEFT SUE!!! SUE THEIR PANTS OFF...oh wait... open source. Rats. :(

oh yea, mr lameness filter i was yelling.

Dream on !

[flyingace]

Dude. you are high on open source euphoria ;)

Apache Browser?

[krgallagher]

From the article:

"The popular open source Apache Web browser takes a similar approach to features."

Does it support tabbed browsing?

Mod Slashdot Troll

[BarryNorton]

1) some other news site has a badly written story 2) some idiot with no background knowledge does no research, just scans the article and pops together a couple of sentences and submits 3) editors notice the magic 'M$ vs OSS' theme and the potential for 'debate' 4) sheep go over the same old arguments, mostly with no understanding of the software in question 5) ... 5) no profit... in reading this rubbish!

In other news...

[unixbugs]

3 people shocked to learn of Microsoft copying other people's ideas.

Web App Settings Override

[jimmyCarter]

Each Web application can have its own config file that overrides the system-wide configuration.

This has been around for ASP.NET web apps since the relase of .NET (Web.Config files). Vanilla HTML sites on the other hand..

No Reboot Required

[Anonymous Coward]

You have been able to [re|un]install IIS without a reboot since XP (XP and 2003).

I doubt running multiple versions on the machine will ever happen, which is fine.

Want IIS5 and it's lack of features? Run 2000, which is lacking compared to IIS6/2003.

Re:No Reboot Required

[Suppafly]

You can uninstall/reinstall iis in 2000 without rebooting.

Re:No Reboot Required

[uradu]

> You have been able to [re|un]install IIS without a reboot since XP (XP and 2003).

That's right, you only ever have to reboot Windows when IIS gets borked beyond recovery. More often than not when trying to cycle IIS it will forever hang, only to be rescued by a sweet reboot. Now that would be a sweet feature, to have a version of IIS that can actually be killed and restarted reliably without a reboot.

Re:No Reboot Required

[delus10n0]

"iisreset" on a command line works just fine here..

My two cents...

[Savage-Rabbit]

If Microsoft wants me to switch, they had better come out with something truly special rather than simply aping the rest of the industry.

I'd settle for a better IIS-FTP component, the one in IIS 6 is a bit of a joke. As for the Metabase , yes it could be more transparent but it isn't that complicated and there is an excellent programming interface for it. Most of all I'd really like to see Microsoft cough up the ability to configure absolutely every aspect of IIS (and Windows it self for that matter) from the commandline. Basically I want the option of being able to do absoloutely everything I can do with the Windows GUI admin tools but over a lousy GPRS connection via a remote text based shell. And this to the point where I don't have to see a Windows desktop for months should the need arise. Even in Windows 2003 the commandline toolkit that comes with Windows is incomplete although Microsoft does offer a bunch of administrator toolkits that help alot but I still fail to see why these have to be tracked down and downloaded seperately rather than being supplied with the OS.

Re:My two cents...

[Kent Recal]

Ummm. Cough. You know, there's this other OS that does everything you want.
Why do you stick with software that doesn't work the way you want?

Re:My two cents...

[nachoboy]

Most of all I'd really like to see Microsoft cough up the ability to configure absolutely every aspect of IIS (and Windows it self for that matter) from the commandline.

What is your primary concern? Is it that tools are simply not available at all to do the work you'd like, or is it that the command-line tools are distributed separately from the OS?

What tasks (in IIS and Windows) can you absolutely not accomplish via the command line today? (Please give as many examples as you can, I'm very interested in others' experiences.) Is this due to lack of awareness of the tools, or lack of availability of tools?

Re:My two cents...

[secolactico]

I'd settle for a better IIS-FTP component, the one in IIS 6 is a bit of a joke.

Heck, yeah. I don't even bother with it anymore and I usually go with a third party program for my ftp needs.

But I wish IIS would allow me to authenticate against an external user database instead of the system's or AD.

Other than that, I have no complains about Windows 2003/IIS 6. I also run Apache 2 on Linux and Apache 1.3 on Solaris. I don't see much of a difference in stability. Apache1.3/Solaris are a bit behind in performance but that's because they are running on a *really* old Sun machine.

Re:My two cents...

[throx]

Basically I want the option of being able to do absoloutely everything I can do with the Windows GUI admin tools but over a lousy GPRS connection via a remote text based shell.

If it's all configured through XML files, I don't see the difficulty here.

In addition, MS is saying they are going to layer their management tools on top of monad so everything will be command line scriptable, but take it with a grain of salt as to when/if that all comes to fruition.

Re:My two cents...

[RomanySaad]

I went to the "Breakout Session" for IIS7 yesterday and the guy was using IISCMD.exe to configure it. I am not sure how robust it is, however.

Re:My two cents...

[sanx]

The ability to do everything from the command-line will begin to become adopted from Win2k3 R2 (yes, I know it's an logical impossibility) and will - apparently - be there with Longhorn server.

Re:My two cents...

[delus10n0]

The mentality here is pretty funny-- most SlashDot people would get on Microsoft for "using their monopoly" to spread their software. Here we have people saying the FTP server _isn't_ good enough, and should be made better. While that's an alright opinion to have, you're also free to install any other FTP server you'd like. The excellent (and free) FileZilla server is one that I find myself using.

Re:My two cents...

[Dom2]

The point about the metabase being xml is very, very important. How many people keep their apache config files in version control? Lots (the sensible people). How many people keep their IIS configs in version control? I don't know, but I'm betting it's a tiny, tiny percentage of the user population.

Version control is essential for systems administration. You need a good, working "undo" button. That's what version control gives you. But VC works best with text files, not the registry. So switching to XML config files will give IIS admins a chance to bring their practises closer to those used by Apache admins (and the rest of the Unix sysadmin world).

-Dom

Re:My two cents...

[Cyberax]

You can control almost everything from simple VB/JS/Perl scripts using WMI (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url =/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wmi_start_page.asp).

That's not a pure command-line, but close.

Re:My two cents...

[ajs318]

If you just want an OS with a decent ftp daemon and where everything can be configured from the command line, why are you bothering to stick with Windows?

Linux has good configurability and a stable ftp daemon. FreeBSD has good configurability and a stable FTP daemon. OpenBSD has good configurability, a stable FTP daemon and an excellent security track record.

My advice to you is to ditch Windows altogether, but not tell the management. Just use Apache and ProFTPD on FreeBSD or Linux. You can get patchsets to make them look sufficiently like IIS that a PHB will never notice the difference, and you will also achieve indispensability. All you need is the ability to cash the cheques that would have gone to the likes of Microsoft; there are many places that can help you, but they most probably won't be in the normal Yellow Pages.

Re:My two cents...

[Savage-Rabbit]

I a word? The PHB crowd demands it. Besides, even though I prefer Unix in its various flavors and use it exclusively on my desktop machine and my own servers I don't mind working with Windows. There is a number of solutions where it's use is mandatory either because there is a demand for Windows specific solutions like Frontpage or because a bigass customer demands Windows being used. Money talks bullshit walks and if the money says Windows I use Windows, I push Unix/Linux as far as I can but if the are dead set on Windows then so be it. I just think that if Microsoft wants to be taken seriously as a server OS vendor they have to include a much much bigger kit of commandline tools. Yes, I know Linux exists, and yes, I know that even on Windows I can painstakingly build my own toolkit with Perl/VB/C# etc... But I don't see why I should have to do that if every other Server OS vendor on the market provides these tools as standard? For all I care they can choose not install these tools by default to avoid confusing they "part-time-admins", just so long as they power tools are there on the Install disk for advanced users to select when we install a Windows Server OS.

Re:My two cents...

[aztracker1]

Yeah, been using Filezilla server for a couple years now, gotten better, but I think I liked the older filezilla user setup a little better... would love a .net configuration interface, to tie it into a service site a bit easier.. but it's all good.. :)

I've also been hoping for sftp built in at some point.

Re:My two cents...

[Bert64]

Apache2 is a lot faster than 1.x on solaris if you use it with a threaded (instead of forking) mpm..

Re:My two cents...

[Bitmanhome]

There's only one of significance:

Automation.

Complex tasks cannot be automated on Windows using installed apps. If you want to automate something, you typically have to buy a product designed for scripting. But then you're held to the features of that product, and can't use the apps that are already installed.

Re:My two cents...

[Heroic Salmon]

Absolutely false. You can automate almost anything in IIS by using VBScript and the metabase.

Re:My two cents...

[Bitmanhome]

Very nice. Now what about the rest of Windows?

Not new...

[Sliptwixt]

" Each Web application can have its own config file that overrides the system-wide configuration." This is not new. web.config (each web app) changes override machine.config (system-wide) already.

encouraging, but not complete

[kindageeky]

so the changes are encouraging and certainly a product of apache's capabilities ... however, the programming model is limited to C++, not C# and other managed languages ... and in talking to members of the IIS team at PDC, it sounds like there is no way to multi-instance if you want to chain reverse proxies, etc.

Why so long

[eneville]

> Specifically, the IIS feature set has been broken
> down into modules to reduce overhead. Modules can
> be changed on the fly, without restarting the Web
> server. Also, the IIS metabase has been completely
> dropped in favor of easily editable XML
> configuration files. Each Web application can have
> its own config file that overrides the system-wide
> configuration.

Ok, why did it take so long to get here? IIS has been frowned upon for some time as being sub standard, the only reason that people use it is often because it is installed by default and that it is very hard to find a free alternative server for ASP. I suppose customer demand is now strong enough for the buyer to choose alternatives, with web authoring languages such as JSP, python, perl, php leading authors in more portable routes, oh and there is Mono, for most purposes serves as a fully compatible .net server.

I am pleased with this change of heart though, hosting on both windows and unix platforms this should enable me to perform more scripting functions than the current meta base allows. For this reason up until now I have always used unix as the default platform, unless a customer requests FPE (front page extensions).

IIS 7

[bitserf]

Okay...So I guess the OP fixated on one thing (modular configuration snippets) and wrote off all IIS efforts as copying.

It is this complacent attitude that will get Apache's ass handed to it.

When I last checked, Apache has no way (short of parsing the config file with your own crappy scripts using unreliable regexen ) for you to inspect the current configuration. IIS has this, the entire object model of the server configuration is available for inspection from the scripts, guaranteed to be accurate.

Apache needs to provide (if not a more structured file format), a set of script-callable APIs for configuring and managing the server.

Grepping the config file and making one or two changes then restarting may be sufficient when you're running 10 or 20 sites in production, but when you're hosting 1000s, you need something better.

IIS is also completely manageable from scripts, and I cast envious glances at the things our IIS admins are able to do with scripts. Create new vhost: Check. Temporarily disable vhost: Check. Modify vhost properties at runtime without bouncing the entire server: Check.

Apache doesn't have anything equivalent (unless you count the big-hammer apachectl START/STOP/GRACEFUL) as "management". Or you write your own. (Yeah, we all have time to reinvent that wheel.)

Apache is playing catch up here in every sense.

And this comes from someone who runs tonnes of sites under Apache in production.

Believe me, generating Apache configuration from a canonical source (i.e. a database) is a royal pain in the ass, but currently the only way you're really going to manage 1000s of sites with Apache if you're offering hosting services.

This management is the single biggest thing missing in Apache today.

Re:IIS 7

[Just Some Guy]

If only there were some scripting language that could be used to configure Apache...

Not that it fully answers your needs, but surely someone who manages 1000s of sites would be aware of its existence?

Re:IIS 7

[indigoid]

yes, Apache config sucks balls. You can, however, make it at least sortof tolerable by structuring your basic httpd.conf (deny/allow, systemwide aliases, etc) sensibly and then putting the vhosts in Includeed directories.

I haven't done thousands of sites, but I've done hundreds, and this worked very nicely.

Re:IIS 7

[caseih]

Forgive my ignorance, but what does mod_perl have to do with having a scriptable interface into Apache's runtime configuration? Can I use mod_perl to dynamically create, stop or destroy a vhost, all on the fly?

Re:IIS 7

[hkb]

Yes, because we all have loads of spare time and the desire to (code our own shit|learn yet another 3rd party methodology) to make up for Apache's shortcomings.

Oddly, Linux zealots don't apply this same generousity to IIS, which can also be easily scripted for stuff the GUI can't do.

Re:IIS 7

[killjoe]

You can configure apache with perl. You can just type perl code into the config file too. Most people with complex apache sites do it with perl programs that are included from the apache config file.

Re:IIS 7

[Karma Farmer]

No, not really.

In Apache 1.x, you could use mod_perl to customize some phases of the Apache configuration process during startup. It's extremely useful, but it falls far, far short of the IIS MetaBase.

Unfortunately, there just isn't anything similar to COM in Linux, so there's really no way to do with Apache all of the stuff that's trivial with IIS.

Re:IIS 7

[oscarm]

If you are hosting tens, hundres, or thousands of sites, you should look into mod_vhost_alias
If properly setup it can
- takes care of creating new vhost
- disabling a vhost
- modify properties by allowing .htaccess overrides

All without restarting apache and interrupting your other sites. If you're manually managing evan a handful of vhosts via a static config file, I'd take your analysis with a grain of salt.

Plus, if you are hosting thousands of sites how are you staying sane if you let each one have its own unique settings?

Re:IIS 7

[bitserf]

Yeah, includes are about the only way to do it sanely.

Along with "graceful", this gives some measure of managability...The important part being that all the configs are generated by scripts and not hand-edited.

Re:IIS 7

[bitserf]

No thanks. I don't want a Perl interpreter mucking around in my web server's internals. I prefer the FastCGI approach, where applications stay the hell out of the web server's address space. Not too sure what this has to do with Apache configuration. Putting the code inside the configuration file itself isn't exactly the solution I'm looking for, more like being able to modify the config from outside of it using scripts.

Re:IIS 7

[Just Some Guy]

Not too sure what this has to do with Apache configuration. Putting the code inside the configuration file itself isn't exactly the solution I'm looking for, more like being able to modify the config from outside of it using scripts.

I'm not sure I really see the difference. Think of "httpd.conf" as "config.pl" that gets executed by starting Apache and you're there. Either way you're dynamically generating the configuration; the difference is whether you write it out to a file first or directly altar Apache's state.

Re:IIS 7

[ink]

He wants to be able to edit vhosts without doing a server restart. 95% (I would wager) of the users out there probably don't care about restarting apache after a configuration change. It just doesn't affect us. Session data is generally stored in cookies or with tomcat, or in a peristent store -- and Apache restart has almost zero effect on operations. A limitation? Yes. It'll have to be addressed at some point. I would, however, rather have the stability and modularity of Apache _now_, and wait for this "feature" later; rather than the other way around, as IIS seems to be growing. That, and I refuse to use a server that doesn't support regular expression url rewrites (mod_rewrite RULES!)

Re:IIS 7

[glwtta]

When I last checked, Apache has no way (short of parsing the config file with your own crappy scripts using unreliable regexen ) for you to inspect the current configuration.

How about someone elses, nice and reliable scripts?

Apache needs to provide (if not a more structured file format), a set of script-callable APIs for configuring and managing the server.

I am not sure how much more structured the file format can be, but it is definitely quite scriptable. Haven't worked much with deploying large numbers of virtual servers, but seems like one could make the configuration entirely data-driven fairly easily.

Modify vhost properties at runtime without bouncing the entire server: Check.

Yeah, that would be cool. Actually, really cool, but only in a limited number of cases (outside of hosting services, that is).

Of course I tend to spend most of my time deep in the guts of only a few apache instances, so management is admittedly not something I think a lot about.

Re:IIS 7

[glwtta]

I don't want a Perl interpreter mucking around in my web server's internals. I prefer the FastCGI approach, where applications stay the hell out of the web server's address space.

Ooh, didn't see that before replying - yeah in that case Apache may not be your best friend. From my perspective that's where the power of apache/mod_perl comes from, the application essentially extends the server rather than using it as a service.

But hey, some people like .war's

Re:IIS 7

[MotoMan045yahoo.com]

Actually configuration is an area that Microsoft puts a lot of effort into. As already mentioned in this theard, IIS 6 has a powerfull scripting interface that makes it is to easier to remote administer 100's or more IIS installs. IIS 7.0 goes even futher to make it even more seemless, and configurable. For you large cooporations these types of features are very important, and one of the reasons why IIS has a more of a presence for fortune 500 companies then they do for smaller sites.

Re:IIS 7

[bitserf]

Now this is where I have to agree. mod_rewrite is without question, Apache's killer module.

You can fake something with IIS+ASP.NET and an IHttpModule, or by writing an ISAPI module (basically, reimplementing mod_rewrite for IIS), but its not the real deal.

Re:IIS 7

[c_g_hills]

You ought to look up Graceful Restart in the Apache manual.

The USR1 or graceful signal causes the parent process to advise the children to exit after their current request (or to exit immediately if they're not serving anything). The parent re-reads its configuration files and re-opens its log files. As each child dies off the parent replaces it with a child from the new generation of the configuration, which begins serving new requests immediately.

However, there are certainly some features of IIS7 that I am looking forward to, such as writing modules with .NET, XML configuration, better security. Unfortunately, it's major shortcoming is it is still relatively expensive.

They didn't ape apache

[Anonymous Coward]

Specifically, the IIS feature set has been broken down into modules to reduce overhead. Modules can be changed on the fly, without restarting the Web server

Oh come on, M$ isn't apeing Apache, they are simply finally getting around to doing what software folks have been doing almost since the begining of time (for computers anyway). It's not like Apache created the idea of having loadable modules that can be specified in a config file.

Flick M$ crap for taking so long to do it, fine, they deserve it. But acting like Apache created this style of architecture is just flat wrong.

Oh, and as to your question of why it taken so long, the answer is more than likely that they are just know feeling that it's important enough to do. The advantage of being in the position they are.

Apache doesn't have hot-swappable modules

[Anonymous Coward]

Apache doesn't have hot-swapable modules.

It has modules, but they are loaded when the server starts. If you want to enable or disable modules you need to restart the server.

You can restart the server in a fairly graceful way with very short downtime. But this is not the same as hot-swapable modules.

So, no, I doubt that anyone at Apache has patented hot-swappable modules.

Have a look at http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/stopping.html for more details.

Thank God!

[subsoniq]

Also, the IIS metabase has been completely dropped in favor of easily editable XML configuration files

That damn metabase has been a pain in the arse for ages, it's about time they got rid of it.

Re:Thank God!

[gromitcode]

they got rid of it in 2003. IIS6 moved to XML configuration way back then so this is nothing new. Poorly written or poorly informed article really.

Confused

[gallir]

I thought, because everyone says it, that Microsoft was innovating and FLOSS just following up.

Now I'm confused, this cannot be true. Pure Slashdot FUD.

Apache patents

[fbg111]

"We've learned from Apache," acknowledged Bill Staples, product unit manager for IIS. Version 7.0 takes the IIS feature set and breaks it down into individual components, or modules, that can be loaded on an as-needed basis. The result is a Web server with much less overhead.

Too bad Apache didn't patent the idea of modularizing a web server, and then sue MS for infringement. A little taste of your own medicine in sometimes a good thing...

Re:Apache patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not stoop to the level of your enemy, but instead rise above them.

For when you stoop to the level of your enemy, you become your own enemy. Then you lose.

next slashdot headline

[ljw1004]

IIS learns a few tricks from apache? Next headline I expect to read: "OpenOffice copies absolutely everything off Office"

Freedom to Innovate Paying Off

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn

IIS6 beats apache on security

[diegocgteleline.es]

I'm sorry, but that's quite the opposite: Statistics are showing that IIS6 has been doing MUCH better than apache lately.

IIS6 beats apache on security (right link here!)

[diegocgteleline.es]

I'm sorry, but that's quite the opposite: Statistics are showing that IIS6 has been doing MUCH better than apache 2.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

OSS fanatics still deny to themselves that everyone in the computer business copies everyone else.

Linux was not the first unix like OS.
Mac stole BSD cause they couldn't make an OS themselves (and they tried) plus they *borrowed* xerox parc icons, windows and mouse, etc.

Damn, got me dreamin'....

[Anonymous Coward]

IIS7 goes one further, by allowing you to put configuration files in each virtual directory or website to over-ride the parent setting (if permitted) - this allows a website owner to configure their own website, without affecting the other websites on the box, or having to ask the administrator to make the changes for them.

Is that true homie!? Wow! Just imagine!.. I wish the apache people could do something like that! But wouldn't it be cool like if it were plaintext? And they could like call those "local conf files" something funky... like let's say ".htaccess" .. Wow, that would be the day....

Just one trick it didn't learn from Apache

[SuperKendall]

Roll over and play dead.

who needs to learn from who?

[Suppafly]

Sounds like IIS has some features that Apache could copy, I don't think apache can change modules without restarting.

Re:who needs to learn from who?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like changing underwear in your cubicle? :D

Apache XML config file would be nice

[maddmike]

I believe this was removed just prior to the 2.0 release. I would be much nicer to have an xml config file for apache.

This is somewhat already available...

[venomkid]

...with web.config files in ASP.NET. And that can run on IIS 5.

As an IIS/ASP dev, I was ecstatic over this. Hearing it's to be expanded to complete system-wide control has my special parts all abuzz.

Backward

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got this backward. Apache doesn't have an XML configuration file. It also doesn't have hot-swappable modules. If IIS now has these features, then it will be Apache that needs to catch up.

Apache has plenty of good features. I don't honestly know how it compares to IIS and I don't much care because I want to run on unix. But it is not perfect. These are two areas where it could improve.

(Why do so many people here think that Apache does have these features?)

Re:Backward

[Anonymous Coward]

XML is crud, there's no reason the current conf can't be translated to XML and back to make parsing easier for the benefit of GUI configuration developers and ultimately 'point and click' sysadmins.

Why does anyone need hot swap modules? How often do you add modules to an Apache install? What's the problem with doing sending the parent process a HUP signal? Since there's no other reason for that functionality, what kind of drooling idiot would add a module to a mission critical server?

Oh boy, Microsoft just keep on innovating don't they?

Re:Backward

[Bulln-Bulln]

Well, maybe Apache does not have these, but other OSS web servers have. Eg if I understand the feature list correctly Roxen WebServer does have at least hot-swappable modules.

Re:Backward

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, XML is crud. That must be why Apache is planning to move its configuration files to XML. You're the man now, dog.

Re:Backward

[glwtta]

Apache doesn't have an XML configuration file.

And thank the gods for that! I believe the feature they are referring to is the concept of having configuration files at all (which you can then easily scriptify, version, etc). As far as I understand IIS was strictly pointy-clicky for config.

That MS chose to do their in XML isn't a feature, just an annoyance for whoever has to work with those files.

(Same thing with modules: having modules is the new feature, that they are run-time loaded is a pretty useless addition)

Re:Backward

[Anonymous Coward]

As I said, writing a parser to translate between XML and traditional conf files is trivial. Read much?

Re:Backward

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wouldn't you want an XML configuration file? IIS' metabase has always been run-time configurable from script. Using XML files just means you can use a broader set of tools to access the config. Hell, VB9 will have XML as a first-class datatype.

Apache's wannabe-XML files cause you to have to write your own parser/generator, or use/learn a language that somebody else wrote a parser for. Why on Earth would you want config files that look like XML but aren't?

As for having modules, IIS has had them since Day 1. It's not even particularly new that they're run-time loaded. Being able to unload them at run-time is new, but Apache can't do that either. You have to restart your server to get a new version of mod_perl or something.

dom

Re:Backward

[glwtta]

Why on Earth would you want config files that look like XML but aren't?

Because they are simpler and easier to edit by hand, when you want to. Tools are nice, but the XML they output tends to be unintelligible to humans (don't know if that's the case here, just often).

There is no reason why tools can't round-trip apache config files properly, either.

Actually, "apache-like" config is a fairly common format, it's just not as fluffy as XML is.

Domain Sort Order

[Tteddo]

Think maybe they will make the default domain list aphabetically instead of the order you input the domains?
Nahhhh....

better security?

[diegocgteleline.es]

Statistics say that IIS6 has been doing MUCH better than apache 2

Re:better security?

[damiam]

Statistics are BS. Apache 2 has been around longer and is open-source, so you'd expect more security flaws to be reported than with a newer, closed product like IIS. I have no idea whether IIS or Apache is more secure, but you're not going to find out by looking at numbers of security advisories.

Re:better security?

[jerw134]

Your reasoning is BS. People seem to have no problem pointing to the number of security advisories between IE and Firefox to show that Firefox is more secure, so why can't we do the same thing for web servers?

Also, I can't find a launch date for Apache 2, but Windows Server 2003 (with IIS6) was launched on April 24, 2003. Apache 2 hasn't been around 13.5 times longer than that, so your reasoning of "it's older" falls apart as well. Face the facts, Microsoft got it right with IIS6.

Re:better security?

[gustar]

Statistics are great, but often abused especially by people who do not bother to look at the data behind a particular statistic. Your post mirrors the same erroneous ideas found in an article [1] I read earlier on zdnet this year, touting the supposed security advantage of IIS6 over Apache2. The article allowed comments, and one of the thread of comments [2] picked apart the fallacy behind this statistic quite well.

I've include the link to the article and the retort below.

[1] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=44

[2] http://www.zdnet.com/5208-10533-0.html?forumID=1&t hreadID=9147&messageID=183193&start=-12

Re:better security?

[Daengbo]

You just can't count security advisories when the method of reporting them is not consistent across different products. It's like doing an experiment where you don't calibrate your instruments before different measurements on different days. The results say nothing.

MS is strongly in the camp where vulnerabilities are not reported publicly until a patch (or at least an exploit) is already available, while Apache publicizes vuln's without either, hoping that the community will pony up with a patch.

How in the world could you ever compare either of these products with numbers that come from such widly different sources? It's like saying that I run faster than you when I measure my speed in km/h and you use miles...

Re:better security?

[DavidTC]

I urge everyone to read that so they know what MAKING UP CRAP looks like.

One of those 'issues' is the fact that some terminal emulators are vulnerable to escape sequences, and Apache 2 may allow those to end up in log files, according to them..

Of course, there's no evidence that Apache does, in fact, log escape sequences. Certainly I've never seen them.

Another one: If you are using wildcard DNS records, then you can access apache using 'javascript' hostnames. If said website then displays 'the name you are accessing me as' on the script, the Javascript will execute. So someone gives you a link with a javascript hostname, and you click on it, there's a crosssite scripting vulernability.

Of course, if they give you a link that says FUCKYOU.sitename.dom, you'll get a big FUCKYOU when you get there, too. I don't know what kind of moron would design a site like that, but calling it an 'apache' problem is stretching the issue. If you access a website with a gibberish name, and the website requests the name it was accessed as, um, it will get gibberish. A script printing gibberish given to it is stupid.

In fact, there's no such damn thing as a cross-site scripting issue on a web server. Those happen in web browsers or on web pages or both combined. This is a web page one. (Actually, DNS implimentations share some blame. If I ask for the IP of bl@ah:as(+f{46}#90=42.something.dom, the OS shouldn't try to resolve it, and, if it does, the DNS server that has a *.something.dom record shouldn't blithely pretend that was a valid request and give the wildcard IP out.)

Quite a few of them are about things that do no come with Apache, or are not enabled in normal operation, like mod_disk_cache or mod_proxy. One is a test script that you have to manually put in place! (This is one they claim is 'unpatched', like you can't just move the damn test script back out of there.) One is for Apache on cygwin, and one is for Apache on Win 9x. One is if you start requiring certain cyphers in SSL in certain virtual hosts, it is possible to get around that requirement. (Does anyone do that? Why?) Another is for client certificates in SSL.

There are a few DoSs. Some local, requiring access to the apache config, or at least .htaccess. A few remote, and those are actual problems.

It's hard to tell, but there appear to be about four of these remote DoSs.

And one of the IIS problems is a remote DoS.

Re:better security?

[jerw134]

If for some reason there is a hole that nobody knows about and therefore there is no exploit available, where is the problem? It doesn't become an important issue until somebody (be it Microsoft, a white hat, or a black hat) is aware of the hole.

Re:better security?

[Daengbo]

First of all, the best exploits are ones that no one else knows about yet. You should know that. If a white hat finds it, he will disclose it or report it to MS. If he doesn't disclose, then it won't show up on any vulnerability lists. That doesn't mean that another, darker-hatted fellow didn't also find the vuln, develop an exploit, and is using it in secret without all the fanfare of a script kiddie.

Then again, it could just be the black hat who found it in the first place and didn't tell anyone, but that wouldn't be different between IIS and Apache. I'm not claiming one or the other is safer, just that this whole "IIS is more secure because there are only 2 exploits" nonsense is just that.

But what about log files???

[spoco2]

Is it just me, or can no-one else find any useful log output from IIS? In Apache when PHP coding just check the log file for all the debugging info you could need... in IIS... nowhere to be seen...

Is it just me or does the IIS logging suck?

Re:But what about log files???

[gromitcode]

Would appear to be just you. ASP.NET provides full debugging and stack dumps including a HTTP module that you can query through a browser to inspect the calls made tot he pages and the results. Don't blame your incompetence on IIS.

Re:But what about log files???

[spoco2]

But, what about PHP, which is what I code in, not ASP? And gee, you're so polite with your answers...

Re:But what about log files???

[gromitcode]

apologies for rudeness of reply. But with PHP the people to blame there are the PHP people, they provide self contained runtimes for IIS and hence it is PHP's responsibility to log what is going on, just as ASP/ASP.NET does. So the logging that sucks is PHP not IIS.

Re:But what about log files???

[ChrisShmit]

I found this on comp.os.linux.announce. no word on IIS files... ...a free Linux/Solaris server that lets you search all your log files... blah ...search and troubleshoot all of their log files...blah... Apache, Jboss... ... http://www.splunk.com?ac=kilroy

Clippy

[lullabud]

Yes, they are innovative. Clippy is the most innovative offering of its kind since Chinese water torture.

Re:Clippy

[Maxhrk]

i wish i could mod you up funny. bah.. when will i have mod points or slashdot hate me forever? :\

Re:Clippy

[houghi]

Now finaly available for vi.
http://houghi.org/shots/vim001.gif

In other news...

[SQLz]

MS patents the modular web server.

Apache config isn't structured?

[Anonymous Coward]

What nonsense.. if it wasn't "structured", how the does Apache parse it? Does Apache have some kind of AI?

No, of course it's structured. It's a lot easier to write a parser for apache's config than an XML config (unless of course you bloat your web server with some third-party XML library).

What exactly is the advantage of writing "<foo>bar</foo>" over "foo bar"?

Personally, I would much prefer a filesystem based config that allowed me to use standard line-oriented editing and shell scripts, and would allow me to use tools like rsync to copy parts of the config to the other machine, and to script config file changes (for example, instead of either of my two examples above, I'd rather just save the string "bar" into a file named "foo" in the config directory. This is incredibly easy to automate AND for a human to edit. Changes can be made safely and atomically.

In fact the first thing I do when faced with some XML BS file format is create a simple file-oriented front-end for it as above. The filesystem is already a hierarchical database (key/value) with a rich array of editing tools (ls, mv, rm, echo, cat, tar, rsync, etc).

Apache has a terrible config system.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be honest, I can't stand httpd.conf. It tries to be flatfile and has XMLish bits at the same time, and the result is a confusing mess. They should either pick one or the other.

Disclaimer: I've never used IIS, so I'm comparing this to other config stuff like php.ini.

Imitation is..

[Anonymous Coward]

..the sincerest form of flattery.

Time to /. change its name to C:

[Anonymous Coward]

damm recently i only read m$ bs over here ...

Does it run unencumbered ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, Norton AV should be on for safety, right ?

Copy Cat

[imr]

Is M$ becoming a mass copy store...First Firefox (for IE7.0) then Apple OS X (for Vista) and now Apache (for IIS). Are they going out of business of innovation?

"without restarting the web server" HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

How many really believe Microsoft can pull this off?

You can't even install apps on a MS box without having to reboot. Now they want us to think they can redesign IIS to not require a restart to load or unload feature sets?

Someone kindly tell them making the server BSOD then reboot does count as restarting the web server.

I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[adipocere]

I just got started with Apache, but the idea that I have to restart the Apache server to add a new Web site is just shocking. Additionally, the documentation (as well as numerous books) aren't particularly clear if people are getting all kinds of 404s during this restarting time. Aside from having to restart when adding ISAPI filters, I never have to restart IIS. I get that "Apache needs to reload and reparse the configuration," but, c'mon. If IIS can do it ...

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[Mishra100]

Can't you just do a /etc/apache2/./apache restart? It only takes a couple of seconds and doesn't require the whole system to reboot...

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[adipocere]

Sure, dandy idea if I'm running a box with five sites in my basement on the cheap.

If I am trying to maintain major sites with totals of millions of hits per day, it not only takes longer to restart due to all of the sites I'm hosting, but that means that a lot of people will be peeved that it is down.

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[DavidTC]

You don't have to restart to add hosts. You merely send the server a HUP and it reload its config. It might be something like '/etc/init.d/httpd reload', or you may need to find the apachectl program.

However, with vhost_alias, you can trivially add virtual hosts without doing anything except making directories.

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[kernelpanicked]

You know you could do something completely outrageous and actually learn apache before bitching. Try this one

# kill -HUP `cat /var/run/httpd.pid`

There's no need to restart the server just to reread the config file.

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[ivan.ristic]

It's true that if you restart Apache (via "apachectl restart") the web server will not be operational for a short period of time. Not only that, the users using Apache at the moment of restart will be cut-off (this is especially annoying if you are downloading a longer file).

But this is exactly why you are not supposed to use this way of restarting in production. Apache supports a so-called graceful restart mode ("apachectl graceful") where it re-reads the configuration and, essentially, starts creating new processes with new configuration but leaves the existing processes to complete their requests. Thus there is no downtime.

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[adipocere]

This is exactly the kind of problem I have with OSS. What was so hard about "send a HUP signal to the process"? Does it have to involve cat? No. I'd be more interested in =what= and =what happens= than strings of needlessly arcane commands.

Re:I hope they don't get Apache's problems, too

[adipocere]

This is awesome if it works. However, the online docs didn't say so (at least, not in a clear manner), the three Apache books I bought didn't say so, and the folks in #apache told me that a graceful restart would still give me downtime.

It's this sort of thing that makes me insane. Rotating the logs requires downtime ... unless you happen to know this teensy little command. Which I had to badger people to find.

I'd love to use mod_vhosts but each site happens to have assorted tricky differences. We have very few "generic" sites.

Sadly, asking questions directly never works. I actually have to taunt people by saying, "I think IIS can do this better" and hope I don't get the "Well, if *n?x can't do it, you don't need it" answer.

Re:"without restarting the web server" HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are retarded

Microsoft? Config File?

[DaCool42]

A Microsoft product that uses a config file? WOW. Wasn't that what the registry was supposed to do?

Also, for those saying a restart is required, you can make apache reread the config file by sending it a SIGHUP.

Re:Microsoft? Config File?

[DavidTC]

Loading (and unloading) modules is one of the few things you can't do with HUP, IIRC.

Yes, it's in the config file, but the module reading config code is fairly magic. It has to be, as modules are usually required to read the config file anyway.

You then know what happens next...

[JoeCommodore]

They release it with some big publicity blitz about how they have now made web management easy through thier new "innovations" to IIS (note not to computing in general).

And not too soon later pointy haired bosses country wide inform us that we sould be upgrading to this new technology to reduce management costs, overhead, tco (more or less the press release verbatim that they soaked up from CEO weekly)

Jakarta/Tomcat XML Config

[ink]

Yes, because editing the Tomcat config file is SUCH a joy every time I upgrade the server. I love all the extremely verobse tags that encapsulate a byte (don't forget to TypeTheEntireEndTagAsWell). It's so much nicer than human language; thinking like a machine makes me so much more productive...

Ahh, XML, a solution for a problem that often doesn't exist.

Don't get me wrong, I love xmlrpc, SOAP and RSS. Places where I don't have to edit the raw data, and it needs to be host agnostic.

Mod parent WAY up.

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Mod parent WAY up. This is one of the most ignorant Slashdots threads I've seen since...well, at least today.

Troll!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll! (not surprising coming from you either)

complicated? how so? any language in specific or aspect of it you can't grasp? I found it very simple actually, I just can't see what you're referring to. Sounds like just a troll...

ugly, ungraceful stinking pile of cow feces? wow. good way to explain what's wrong with it - no need to even have any valid points or anything. How about I say Java is a ugly, ungraceful stinking pile of cow feces? Is that any less true? Sounds like mindless bashing to me.

You're very well in your right not to like it, but maybe you should try pointing out what sucks instead of just bashing it like that?

Right now it just sounds like you're some angry kid who can't manage to understand it even though it's quite simple, and because of that you're just bashing it. (which kind of goes with your current trend of posts too)

ASP.Net sucks indeed. I mean, look at ASP.Net 2.0, coming with the very best development tools (VS.Net), so many great improvements and powerful technologies right out of the box - data caching, page output caching, databinding, web-farm session state, profiles, forms authentication, make multilingual web apps by adding 2 entire lines of code, master pages, web parts, application health monitoring (lots of neat stuff involved), xcopy deployment, DPAPI to protect your data (like DB connection strings), new powerful data access components, can render pages for mobile clients automatically, 70% less code for the same job (FOR REAL!), etc etc...

And all of the old stuff too: 25 different .Net REAL (not scripting), powerful languages to choose from, 100% code/content separation (codebehind pages), powerful framework, faster than J2EE, settings in xml files, XML and web services are 1st class data providers, lots of nice 3rd party controls, dozens of excellent support forums and websites (MSDN, 4GuysFromRolla, CodeProject, etc etc) - including tons of videos on MSDN:TV and the like, tons of starter kits, code can easily be ported to run on Mono or using Grasshopper, tons of excellent resources like the enterprise library (7 excellent and very useful blocks) for free provided with all source code, etc etc...

Yes, I can see it really sucks, you must be right! It just couldn't be that you're just an asshole who doesn't have a fucking clue.

RoR isn't exactly fast, hosting for it is quite hard to find, most companies don't want anything to do with it (unlike J2EE/ASP.Net [enterprise class stuff] and php/asp [easy/fast/cheap scripting stuff]), rather odd way of doing things, and there is hardly anyone to contract out or hire for development/fixing bugs/maintenance of those apps (yet at least). In most places I've seen, you'd be LAUGHED AT for even mentionning it (and if you were a contractor - that'd probably be your last call). PHP would be considered well before that. Webobjects is another story, but it's not the the only decent solution.

Anyways. Why is it that everytime I get mod points there's nothing interesting to mod, and when trolls like this abound I never get any?

All right.

[Zebra_X]

First off - Let's talk about the IHttpModule. Since .NET has been released - this has been available to developers to extend and do with as they would please. It's been more than sufficient for almost all of the problems a developer would face within an ASP.NET application. It's nice that MS is finally extending that kind of engineering to the ISAPI interface - as there are a select few things that you can't do with the IHttpModule and need to implement in ISAPI.

Have a look at the current model for Module development. It is with out question the most well designed OOP approach to programming modules than anything else out there (Java). The thing that really sets .NET approach is that Events and Delegates are first class citizens in the .NET world. In java, until recently, they have been relegated to the UI, which is not really a Correct way of thinking.

MS FTP is a different story - it has pretty much sucked through and through - I really wish they would fix it. Also - I do NOT want to create a forking domain, or computer user account for every FTP user.

Finally, whatever the IIS metabase is - you rarely have to edit it by hand. See there is this thing called the IIS Manager and well, it's a GUI and you use it to configure your sites. It's like really easy to use and stuff.

The got damn apache config is a pain in the ass and is far more cryptic than it needs to be. How many years has apache been available and *why* is there not a gui for creating new site?

Now my real beef is this: MS has contributed a great deal to many aspects of our desktops across all platforms. Most Linux UI's are essentially knock offs of win95 with some extra goodies that can easily be had for windows. Every time you use one though - you know it's not the real thing, there is something about the responsiveness that really tells them apart. As far as Mac OS X is concerned - There are several enhancements that are widely ignored such as Alt-Tab, something that windows has had for years but OS X just only recently incorporated with out and sort of extension. I say recently because that feature has been available since windows 3.1. There are also a number of concepts that OS X has employed that have conceptually been part of Vista for a long time but have not been delivered on as OS X has.

As an OS X owner and XP owner, and well a 2003 server owner as well - I will say this - MS knows hardware. Apple seems to have a difficult time releasing patches for software and hardware configurations that I can count on my fingers and my toes. MS has a completely different problem - how to engineer a *brand new* os that runs on ten year old hardware. Apple's OS X requires at the *very least* hardware similar to - if not exceeding Vista's projected requirements. MS has to deal with a bunch of legacy crap - Apple doesn't "do legacy", in that respect I think it's unfair to compare the two.

In closing - OS X is not perfect nor is it completely original. If we all had hardware that could support a fully abstracted 3d interface the app we create would be a *little different* now wouldn't they? Apache is good but has it's flaws (management) and lately IIS 6's security track record has been better than Apache II's, I mean we can't all be perfect all the time. Finally Vista will be Good, we will like it - but hate paying for it because there are people out there that would have us believe that it should be free. I still maintain - you get what you pay for.
Have a look at the current model for Module development. It is with out question the most well designed OOP approach to programming modules than anything else out there (Java). The thing that really sets .NET approach is that Events and Delegates are first class citizens in the

Re:All right.

[DavidTC]

How many years has apache been available and *why* is there not a gui for creating new site?

Are you brain damaged in some way, or have you just not looked?

Re:All right.

[Zebra_X]

Does it sound like I'm f&^( brain dead?

No - why does APACHE not SHIP with a got damn GUI for configuration? I don't want to download some 3rd party GUI for the httpd.conf file. I want apache to maintain their own. Every other vendor in the "real world" provides these kinds of wares for their prodcuts.

Re:All right.

[cyborg_zx]

No - why does APACHE not SHIP with a got damn GUI for configuration?

Because having a pretty way of configuring a server may not perhaps be the most important thing in the world?

Re:All right.

[CrazyMoonLover]

There are several enhancements that are widely ignored such as Alt-Tab, something that windows has had for years but OS X just only recently incorporated with out and sort of extension. Bzzzzt, wrong. Mac OS has had this since Mac OS 8, OS X of course since the beginning. You obviously have quite a limited knowledge of OS X, if any. And I must say, I find the implementation of Alt-tab much better on OS X, since you can use the "q" button to quit apps and the "h"-button to hide them, while browsing the list.

Re:All right.

[DavidTC]

No, they do not. Name a single Unix server program that comes with a GUI configuration tool of its own. Let's see...Samba. And that's it.

However, something that comes with most Linux distributions, Webmin, manages Apache just fine, so you don't have to 'download' anything.

Which is why I asked if you were brain damaged. While Apache may not provide a GUI config tool, either does IIS6. They both just use the OS's configuration tool, Webmin and the MMC respectively.

As an added bonus, of course, you can access Webmin from any sort of computer, as it's posing as a web server. Whereas MMC can do remote access, but only from other Windows machines.

Sadly, if you're running Apache on Windows, support for Webmin on Windows is still very beta. (Webmin is just Perl.) Here it is if you want to risk it.

Apache on Windows has always been a bit of a joke anyway, though. If you run Apache in its intended enviroment, a Unix or Unix-like system, Webmin works fine. If you run it on a Linux system, Webmin is usually already installed.

Of course, in your hypothetical world where the Apache devs also decided to write a UI, it would be for X, and thus difficult to run on Windows in the first place.

Re:All right.

[Zebra_X]

Then at least make the config file pretty :-)

A few corrections..

[delus10n0]

IIS has had a non "metabase" XML configuration file since version 6. And even before that, it wasn't that difficult to maintain the metabase. You had command-line utilities, or a graphical "regedit" type editor.

Also, while the "modules" concept might be expanded in IIS7, it was already in IIS6, and to a point in IIS5 (if you used the IIS Lockdown tool.) In IIS6, you can either use a wizard or manually remove components you don't need, like ASP, ASP.Net, etc.-- you can force IIS to just handle "static" files if you want.

So, yeah. Another article and summary of an article by people who don't know what they're talking about. And yet more anti-Microsoft mentality.

"Learns?"

[serutan]

Perhaps by "learns a few tricks," the submitter meant, "takes advantage of the fact that the Apache team didn't apply for tons of stupid software patents." Somebody hand Ballmer a chair to throw now so he can rant about killing Apache.

Just use suEXEC and FastCGI together

[ivan.ristic]

If you need scripts to run as different users then just use suEXEC (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/suexec.html), which is designed for that very purpose (and comes standard with Apache). One problem with this approach, however, is that you will experience a performance penalty because suEXEC only works for CGI scripts.

If you need to have the speed of a module together with the security of suEXEC then you need to install the FastCGI module too. FastCGI (http://www.fastcgi.com/ is a communication protocol that allows scripts to remain persistent and process more than one request from a single process. (And, yes, FastCGI is smart enough to only create processes when they are needed and to shut them down when they are not needed any more.) The thread-safety problem would also go away.

The IIS metabase *IS* XML

[Anonymous Coward]

"The IIS metabase (IIS 6.0) is a plaintext, XML data store that contains most IIS configuration information."

BTW patching XML to change configuration values, on a production server, is more like "terrifying" than "easy".

Inaccuracies and misinformation

[damieng]

IIS6 already has an XML based configuration system as standard.

Apache does NOT have XML configuration files.

As far as I know Apache won't load new modules without a restart.

XML config files are irrelevant and unnecessary !

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a bit shocked that smart people such as the slashdot reader, can be so ... siezed upon by the storage notation of the apache config file

XML is an industry buzz.. but, it's a tool, not a requirement

The ability to have experts verify code quality... is in my view a 'real' requirment and that's how the development process of an OSS server like Apache, beats the shit out of ISS

Super hero IIS coder-x leaves Microsoft and you might see release quality ( I use the term lightly for IIS ) tank... yet in five, ten, twenty releases hence... you will still have... hundreds/thousands of people inspecting Apache source and finding esoteric bugs, that *can't* be found by the closed nature of the propiatery development process

Ranting about XML, seems dumb... it seems (is) a case of people extolling technology (X)... not because that technology addresses a need, or specifically fullfills a specific requirement.....but instead, because that technology is buzzy.

I expect my colleages and people who seek to have their opinions listened to by me, to have opinions based on 'facts' not opinions based on marketoid and nomclature.

In conclusion OSS projects release code when it's ready.. whereas propiatery vendors frequently enforce their developers timeline's to jump to the tune of the marketing department. For me, that's the only and most critically important criteria, when measuring *which* development paradigm will produce the superior quality of product... for me as an end user. That's how Apache wins IIS looses. Thanks for playing Bill.

JF

Migration

[jpostel]

What would be the need?

The only need I have had to deal with is migration. e.g. I have a website that requires a certain version of modules or code or whatever. The existing version only works on the existing platform (Apache or IIS). The new version will work on the new platform. In order to migrate with no downtime, I would have to buy another box and setup the new code on it with IIS. Which brings me to my 2nd point.

Using the latest and greatest is the smart choice for 99.9999% of the people.


The latest and greatest IIS costs money just to aquire the software, which as mentioned in my first point, does not count the additional hardware required for migration.

All that said, I've been extremely happy with Win2k3 and II6 relative to Win2k and IIS5. I have encounted very few issues with stability, and I have and will continue to recommend Win2k3 and IIS6 for clients that don't have / won't pay for *nix expertise.

Sites actively avoid IIS

[SgtChaireBourne]

The relevant quote there from that article:

"Gartner remains concerned that viruses and worms will continue to attack IIS until Microsoft has released a completely rewritten, thoroughly and publicly tested, new release of IIS," the report says.

Even though MS servers have IIS pre-installed and baked into the price, Apache has 70% of the server market worldwide. In some areas, like Germany, the percentage is pushing over 90%

The difference, real or perceived, is enough that sites are going out of their way to choose Apache.

lol heres what my post should have looked like

[petermgreen]

httpd.conf is a pseudo XML. I don't see how it could possibly be a more pleasant than XML

well it combines the power of a nestable structure with the conciseness of simple name=value pairs for the values themselves.

which is easier to read and edit to you?

<optionname value=shit/> (XML)

optionname=shit (apache)

Re:lol heres what my post should have looked like

[Curtman]

I'd be fine with:

<optionname name="shit" description="Sets the ammount of fecal matter (in Kg) sent to the owners of zombied Windows boxes who fill your apache log and you're too lazy to set up a filter and you forgot to install logrotate" min="0" max="1000">1000</optionname>

Markup languages suck for data.

[Anonymous Coward]

Markup languages (XML, SGML, etc) are fine for presentation/document formats; but really suck for representing data.

Consider something like YAML instead.