Netcraft Says IIS Gaining on Apache

benjymouse quotes this month's netcraft survey "In the August 2007 survey we received responses from 127,961,479 sites, an increase of 2.3 million sites from last month. Microsoft continues to increase its web server market share, adding 2.6 million sites this month as Apache loses 991K hostnames. As a result, Windows improves its market share by 1.4% to 34.2%, while Apache slips by 1.7% to 48.4%. Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position."

Comments

Google Web Server

[Major Blud]

The article refers to Google as being one of the web server providers. Is Netcraft referring to the Google Web Toolkit, or is there actually a Google web server that I don't know about?

Re:Google Web Server

[Leffe]

With this month's survey, Netcraft has begun tracking Google's custom web server software known as GFE (Google Front End), which is currently found on 2.7 million hostnames, or 2.3% of all sites. Google customizes its web infrastructure, with in-house solutions for software and hardware, including energy-efficient servers and power supplies. GFE is the server found on Blogger sites at blogspot.com, while Google uses GWS (Google Web Server) on some other services, although none with the volume of hostnames seen at Blogger.

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2007/05/01/may_2 007_web_server_survey.html

Re:Google Web Server

[Major Blud]

Ah, didn't think to look back at May. Thanks for the info.

GoDaddy and the like?

[dsginter]

Is this the possible result of Microsoft converting Godaddy's parked domains to Windows servers?

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an interesting point. How many of them are "parked" domains and how many are active sites? ANY web server can handle 5000 inactive URLs pointing to flunky advertising sites. I would like to see those states with the domain registrars excluded.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Smortex]

As far as I remember, Netcraft talked about this a few month ago when releasing the results of a previous survey.

Btw, is the "technology platform that is security-enhanced" they speak about the same used on this page? If yes, sure it's secured: the page links point to "C:\..." and only those who have the static pages of microsoft.com on their hard disk (and running windows) can expect securely browsing the "presspass" corner :)

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[the_mighty_$]

I don't think parked domains are considered "active servers." The Netcraft stats show that IIS is gaining ground against Apache even faster among active servers than nonactive servers (see this graph). Godaddy switching to IIS would not explain that.

Or am I misunderstanding what "active servers" are?

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

If that's the methodology, then the more obvious solution is to base any statistics on IP address, and not on sites. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would use a "site" as the primary means of doing web server counts.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's basically saying that you're not a professional, so you have to rely on a corporation and their professionals that you feel comfortable with trusting. Fine for you, but that doesn't mean it's the best product.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[hab136]

If that's the methodology, then the more obvious solution is to base any statistics on IP address, and not on sites. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would use a "site" as the primary means of doing web server counts.

Many legitimate hosting sites use a handful of IPs for hundreds or thousands of sites. Counting by IP isn't valid.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[OriginalArlen]

Not likely - if you look at the Netcraft charts, you can see the decline's been steady and consistent for several months (6-9-12 or so IIRC. No, I haven't read the article yet because I was only looking at the Netcraft survey & getting depressed a couple of months back, and I know that I'll be mightily cheered up by the comments in a few hours' time -- the lame humour, I-for-one, accusations of M$-funded FUD, assertions that it's because Windows shops are all full of fules and madmen... and so on. That really gives me hope that Free software will triumph in the end.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not wrong either though. They are idiots and a convicted monopolists.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[morgan_greywolf]

In fairness to the GP post, his statement is accurate. People were paid to develop IIS and therefore can be called professionals and MS is a well known name. If that makes him sleep better at night and doesn't mind throwing his money around for that solution and its artificial restrictions, so be it.

People were paid to develop Apache. Open source != everybody worked for free.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you ARE wrong; they aren't idiots. They have some of the smartest people anywhere.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[hardburn]

Amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[rubycodez]

also Microsoft professionals created the IT infrastructure that has caused billions of dollars in malware-related downtime, and degraded to useless performance of infested machines. Thank you Bill Gates, you've fucked up more businesses than any world war.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fol-de-rol!

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[dup_account]

idiot sevant

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[fotbr]

Assuming the ark ever actually existed, and that the fairy tale is true, then the builders of the ark were given instructions from their god. And if you accept that their god was/is all-knowing, then they can't really be called amateurs.

Alternately, the builders of the Titanic were not the ones that sailed full-steam into an area full of icebergs, after ignoring warnings of said icebergs in said area.

Besides - I thought we were supposed to make car analogies, not boat analogies. :)

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[AvitarX]

I am always skeptical of the malware ridden platform massive cost angle.

MS software has saved companies billions of dollars. I don't think any sane person would argue otherwise.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

Good point. Perhaps there is simply no way of legitimately determining what the underlying platforms are. There are so many webservers out there that maybe the whole notion is bogus.

Personally, I've worked with IIS and Apache. I find IIS a real pain to administer, and often difficult to diagnose problems. Apache is a bit more difficult to get up and running, but having easily accessible configs makes it a lot easier to maintain.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[jafiwam]

And, by what magic of the new HTTP 2.0 protocol are you running two different server software types on the same IP and on the same port?

Counting by IP address is by far, more accurate than comparing hostnames and sites. So counting by IP is MORE VALID than the method they used. Despite your ignorant little point.

If you want to count individual BOXES, then IP is as close as you are going to get without doing a survey or special fingerprinting of the data to find differences in machines. (It will still be too big, I run 122 IPs with about 350 sites on them. The ratio changes all the time due to customers coming/going and reconfigurations...)

I am going to guess, that the fact that millions of "parking" domains are run for the most part on Apache causes the popularity of that particular activity of lowlife scum to weigh heavily in the Netcraft numbers.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Yetihehe]

MS software has saved companies billions of dollars. I don't think any sane person would argue otherwise.MS software has saved companies billions of dollars. I don't think any sane person would argue otherwise.

Erm, how? With licensing costs maybe?

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[bursch-X]

No but if one guy has two IP addresses pointing at his IIS server and the other one only one IP pointing at his Apache server, the server count would be IIS : Apache, 2:1 while the physical server count would still be 1 : 1. This can't be even acceptable as a means for counting Apache installations.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Not sure if this qualifies as an answer as it is neither magic nor HTTP 2.0 (in fact its more web admin 101), but inspecting host headers will do that for you.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[rubycodez]

well, hello Bill Gate's fluffer. The costs of the major worms and malware have been documented, if you'd take the time to research before spewing useless nonsense.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[blowdart]

Take a look at the netcraft graphs; it talks about servers when counting the OS, not domain names (that's another set of statistics). Of course IP isn't reliable for big sites either, as the load balancer gets in the way and you may be missing 5+ machines sitting behind it on internal IP addresses. If someone could find the survey methodology it might go some way to explaining what's happening but I really doubt it's surveying OS distribution by domain name simply because it calls them servers.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you ARE wrong; they aren't idiots.

No, I am NOT wrong; they are idiots. Writing things in block capitals doesn't make them right. I am right because even their CEO is a fucking monkey.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[mini me]

Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would use a "site" as the primary means of doing web server counts.

If I have 100 sites on one server, I still made a choice as to which web server I want to use to host each site. It's really no different than if I had 100 separate hosts; one for each site.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[originalnih]

It's spelt 'savant', smart guy.

I reiterate previous posts where I highlight the overindulgent attitude towards granting slashbots the label of higher intelligence.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[dindi]

Agreed, I NEVER had to restart an apache because it was hung, only for scheduled maintenance. I worked in a 1000+ server infrastructure till now, and the only pain came from IIS and JAVA servers. Note: yes I know they are apache tomcats at the end (Jboss, WL, WS), but it is a completely different story.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[DogDude]

also Microsoft professionals created the IT infrastructure that has caused billions of dollars in malware-related downtime, and degraded to useless performance of infested machines. Thank you Bill Gates, you've fucked up more businesses than any world war.

The reason that we have massive IT infrastructures is because of MS in the first place. If not for Windows, then most regular people wouldn't even be using computers.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[alfrin]

Good point. Perhaps there is simply no way of legitimately determining what the underlying platforms are. There are so many webservers out there that maybe the whole notion is bogus.
As far as I can tell, discovering which platform is in use wasn't really what was being discussed and there doesn't seem to be much, if any, problem determining what a given site is hosted on.

What I saw as the focus of the GP and GGP was about whether or not it was more accurate to base the statistics on IP address or per website. I say the latter because as stated on IP address can host a few sites. So by finding out the web server per website you're getting an accurate view of which is being chosen more for web hosting. It doesn't matter how many Linux or Windows server are out there, it's which one is being used to host the most sites.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[hab136]

And, by what magic of the new HTTP 2.0 protocol are you running two different server software types on the same IP and on the same port?

Cisco, Foundry, and several other vendors make load balancing devices that allow you to have one public-facing IP distributed to dozens of back-end machines. If you connect to 1.2.3.4 on port 80, you can actually be connected to machine A, B, C, etc.. these machines not necessarily running the same web server software or operating system. In this case the actual public-facing IP is often called a VIP (Virtual IP) since it's not assigned anywhere except on the load balancer.

Counting by IP address is by far, more accurate than comparing hostnames and sites. So counting by IP is MORE VALID than the method they used.

You're right, it depends what you're counting. If you're counting the number of boxes that run a particular web server, then IPs will probably be more accurate, although load balancing will skew this. If you're counting the number of customers those chose IIS vs. Apache, whether or not they are jammed onto a large hosting server with other customers? Counting by sites will be more accurate there, although skewed by domain parking.

Despite your ignorant little point.

I love you too man!

If you want to count individual BOXES, then IP is as close as you are going to get without doing a survey or special fingerprinting of the data to find differences in machines. (It will still be too big, I run 122 IPs with about 350 sites on them. The ratio changes all the time due to customers coming/going and reconfigurations...)

I'm guessing 121 of those sites are SSL? Name-based multihosting and load-balancers mean you normally only ever need one public-facing IP for non-SSL sites. Better yet, all your back-end boxes can be configured identically, with all of the sites on every box, so you can spread the load evenly. Even if your application needs to keep the user on a particular box during a session, the load balancer can be directed to do so.

I am going to guess, that the fact that millions of "parking" domains are run for the most part on Apache causes the popularity of that particular activity of lowlife scum to weigh heavily in the Netcraft numbers.

I agree (see above about skewing).

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Blakey Rat]

Despite your ignorant little point.

You've never heard of a hardware load-balancer, and HE'S the ignorant one? Hah!

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have my DNS setup to support *.mydomain.com, so my Apache installation should add a near infinite number of additional domains to the statistics.

Counting by domain name is useless. Count the number of installs and weight them by traffic if you want these stats to be taken seriously!

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[ajs318]

If not for Windows, then most regular people wouldn't even be using computers

At least they'd probably be able to read, write, spell, do sums and know when to say "please" and "thank you". I do not think that would be at all a bad thing.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MadnessASAP]

Wrong! We would still have massive IT infrastructures, it just would have happened slightly later at the hands of some other company. Perhaps Apple or maybe some other completely different company that didn't make it because Microsoft showed up. Just because one event in history does not happen doesn't mean that all subsequent events don't happen, almost always it just means that some other event will occur to fill its place and things will only change slightly.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[veganboyjosh]

I thought we were supposed to make car analogies, not boat analogies. :)

this was built by professionals. this was built by amateurs.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

I remember IIS5 hanging from time to time, but IIS6 is MUCH better in that regard.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

"We would still have massive IT infrastructures, it just would have happened slightly later at the hands of some other company. Perhaps Apple or maybe some other completely different company that didn't make it because Microsoft showed up."

And because that same idiots would be operating that IT infrastructure, the exact same problems would occur.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[dmsuperman]

Right but since the count is on the number of servers, not the number of sites, that use the software, it would be valid.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[mulvane]

Um, honestly, the fact that most people are using computers is half the reason RIAA/MPAA/MAFIA is getting so many of these stupid laws passed. I miss the good ol days of 2400baud personally. Tech was different and so was the culture back then.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Jack9]

This can't be even acceptable as a means for counting Apache installations

Your logic implies that any method that would have inconsistencies makes the data largely unreliable? What about the myriad of ways to obfuscate server type? There's nothing wrong with their method as it's efficient and gives a relatively good number to saying, "if the data is not an exact match to reality, it's not worth showing."

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[tsm_sf]

Aah, for the days when computing was a gentleman's pursuit -- back before every Joe Sweatsock could wedge himself behind a keyboard and jet off to msn.com.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[PitaBred]

And if another guy has one IP pointing at two IIS servers in a round-robin type serving, then the count would be Apache 2, IIS 1, even though the actual install is different. It's still a better metric than just doing hostname based counting, because vhosts are MUCH more common than multiple IP servers, or even multiple server IP's. It's not perfect, but nothing is, and it sure as hell is a lot closer.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[linuxrocks123]

I think it's more likely that /M$ sites/ are responsible for this. M$ is running a service called "Windows Live Blogs", which has been growing in membership recently. Each blog gets its own subdomain, so each blog counts as a separate "site". M$ of course uses IIS to host its blog service, so it looks to Netcraft like IIS is gaining market share. However, the gains are totally illusory; looking at SecuritySpace confirms that the problem is with the way Netcraft counts sites.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Mattsson]

Many legitimate hosting sites use a handful of IPs for hundreds or thousands of sites. Counting by IP isn't valid. When trying to find out how many servers that are running IIS or Apache or some other http-server, counting IP's are much more valid than counting sites for just that reason.
If one IIS server has one thousand sites, it is still just one IIS server installation.
If one Apache server has one thousand sites, it is still just one Apache server installation.
Any other way of counting is invalid.
The problem comes when one server has several IP's. But that would corrupt the data much less than counting sites on servers with multiple sites, since a server tends to have more sites than IP's.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Bert64]

Not at all, Amiga/Commodore, Apple, Atari, Acorn and a whole host of other computers were popular before ms pressured them out of the market. People/businesses who had a need for a computer would have bought one anyway, so we'd have had a far more diverse internet resulting in less potential damage from a single virus/worm.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[sheldon]

Most corporation installations(where you will see IIS most likely) are a single IP address being hosted on numerous servers behind a load balancer.

This can't be even acceptable as a means for counting IIS installations.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Bert64]

How exactly?
And relative to what?

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Large sites are usually on a load balancer with one IP and several to HUNDREDS of boxes powering the site behind the load balancer. So IP#s is not so useful either.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[AvitarX]

But they are compared to perfect ideal software (not even other solutions that exist, but the hypothetical perfect software with the same cost to setup and support).

I propose that using bug ridden software saves billions of dollars vs paper and pencil with library cards (a solution that actually exists, unlike "perfect software").

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

Yeah, nobody owned computers before Microsoft. No one was networking before Microsoft. No one had large-scale information infrastructure before Microsoft.

Good grief, but it's pathetic when the Redmond shills start spewing forth incredible bullshit.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[louzerr]

Of course, to listen to more than one IP (sans 127.0.0.0 network) on windows, you need to purchase the full server license, or invalidate your license by hacking it (if that's still possible). One IP. No matter if you run IIS or Apache.

If you're running linux, you can listen to several hundred IPs (I am not sure of the actual limit), so it would seem that it would be easier for APACHE to spoof it's numbers.

Then there's the reverse-proxy thing - if you must run IIS, I highly recommend an Apache server as a reverse proxy in front of it. Of course, in such a case the proxy is transparent, and the IIS machine behind Apache announces itself.

Also, anyone can take Apache software and re-brand. It's a trivial thing to change the server software from "Apache/{version}" to "Pete's Firewall" if you build from source (which thanks to the hard work of ASF, is easy to do). I'm pretty sure IIS will not let you do that.

Long and short, Netcraft merely provides a metric that Gartner et al can use to write papers. It's best for business if those numbers stay fuzzy and just a bit mysterious. It's only as "acceptable" as it needs to be ;)

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[DogDude]

Yeah, nobody owned computers before Microsoft. No one was networking before Microsoft. No one had large-scale information infrastructure before Microsoft. Good grief, but it's pathetic when the Redmond shills start spewing forth incredible bullshit.

Wait, what are you calling bullshit? It sounds like you're calling yourself a shill because yes, before MS DOS and Windows 3.11 and especially Windows 95, relatively few people did use computers. Unless I'm from a different dimension than you, the MS Windows platform did, indeed, bring computers to the masses.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, maybe I forget how IIS works (been a while) but IIRC IIS 5 on Windows server 2000 std edition needed a unique IP for each site, whereas Apache could share the one IP address across many sites. So counting IP addresses skews the result in favour of IIS.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Tmack]

Or, like how MANY sites are done, one IP, many VHOSTs, do they count that as 1, or does each VHOST count? You COULD install 100 servers with IIS to cover the load, but 1 apache install with 100 VHOSTs is easier and far cheaper. For that matter, if they ARE counting each host instead of IP, I could just start running a short script that visits every host in my wildcarded vHOSTs with their toolbar watching. Talk about skewing the results... 1/0

T

dont get me started with slb's...

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

The home computer revolution was well underway while IBM PCs and MS-DOS were largely considered business computers. A helluva lot of Apple II's, TRS-80s and Commodore 64s were sold before Windows 3.1 came on the market. I have a hard time crediting Microsoft for that revolution. PCs running DOS didn't really make headway into the home market until the end of the 1980s.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

IIS 5 could do virtual domains. A common setup that I used was to have sites answer on all interfaces (with a * wildcard as I recall). Some folks claimed that was bad practice, but I never had a problem. Win2k's TCP/IP stack didn't have all the horrid problems that earlier versions did.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[rajafarian]

The costs of the major worms and malware have been documented...

BUT, you see, they come out of a different part of the IT budget so from Microsoft's point of view they, don't count, they're basically ZERO.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[mikael_j]

Actually, there were plenty of computer users prior to Windows 95. As for MS DOS, there were computers before it and it was hardly without competition in the market back in the day. In fact, the main reason MS DOS beat the competition wasn't because it was superior, it was because a lot of companies went with IBM PCs or compatibles and they normally came with MS DOS (or PC-DOS or DR-DOS), so when Joe Q Drone decided to buy a computer for himself he went with what he knew about, MS DOS..

/Mikael

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is easy to have more that a web server software in a IP...

You only need to put a reversal proxy in front, and send the information to the corresponding server

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[budgenator]

We'd just be using Macs instead of PC's, spending more for hardware and less for virus scanners; so it would work out about the same.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[RajivSLK]

Why don't they just count by IPs and Vhosts and report both numbers? Both seem equally valid, just showing different data.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[LadyLucky]

Just a guess, but the host header of HTTP 1 will do the trick.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

Well, I'd say IIS6 hangs just as much as 5, but with the application pool controls you have more options for IIS to restart itself automatically. Not really a "solution" to the problem, more of a band-aid. Also you have more control over process isolation than you did in 5, but again overall I wouldn't say it's more reliable.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[BlueStraggler]

Apache is a bit more difficult to get up and running...

Are you compiling from source or something? It's been pre-installed and pre-configured on every unixish box I've seen over the last 10 years (and that's gotta be 50-100 boxes running various OSes). I can see that some specialized modules can be difficult to get going, but for basic Apache, you just turn it on. In fact, for some early Linuxes, the first thing you had to do after setting up a system was turn if OFF, since it was running by default.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

"Well, I'd say IIS6 hangs just as much as 5, but with the application pool controls you have more options for IIS to restart itself automatically.

No. With application pools, you restart the application pool instead of IIS.

"Not really a "solution" to the problem"

Of course it's not a solution. But then what you described is not the purpose of application pools in IIS.

I remember very well IIS5 being taken down completely by misbehaving apps, which in turn would take down every single website hosted on the server. Since I've moved these apps to IIS6 and segregated them into Application pools the "problem apps" no longer affect other apps or sites on the system, much less take down IIS.

After suffering for years with crappy apps on IIS5, and moving them over to IIS6, I laugh at anyone who claims IIS6 is not more stable than IIS5.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[thogard]

Active servers don't need any content.
I would like to see the stats of domains with at least 10 pages.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[mysidia]

And, by what magic of the new HTTP 2.0 protocol are you running two different server software types on the same IP and on the same port?

It's called virtual hosting reverse proxy/load balancer, where you distribute requests to one of the proper server's for the requested site based on the "Host" header supplied with the HTTP request.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Kalriath]

5.0 (which shipped initially with 2000) couldn't, but 5.1 (a later upgrade) could. IIS6 is the first one where it was in there from the start and worked easily.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[jbplou]

With a proxy someone could easily run IIS and Apache on two separate servers using the same IP. Also there is nothing stopping you from running both on the same server with the same IP address if they are bound to different ports.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

No. With application pools, you restart the application pool instead of IIS. Yeah dickhead, you know what I meant. MS didn't make IIS more stable, they gave more process isolation capability and the ability for a watcher process to orphan a thread and start a new one when one did become unstable. They didn't fix anything.

I remember very well IIS5 being taken down completely by misbehaving apps, which in turn would take down every single website hosted on the server. Then you had IIS5 configured wrong. IIS5 had process isolation as well, but it was all or nothing, you couldn't logically combine sites into common threads so to isolate everything on a server it took much more memory which limited its capacity, but it was possible. If you had misbehaving apps you could isolate them from IIS and it wouldn't affect the rest of the server. I still have a few dozen IIS5 servers floating around out there.

After suffering for years with crappy apps on IIS5, and moving them over to IIS6, I laugh at anyone who claims IIS6 is not more stable than IIS5. Please. We all "suffered" through it, and we still suffer. I'll say it again, IIS6 is not more stable, it just has self-healing abilities. It still crashes/hangs and orphans threads constantly. You just probably don't notice it anymore - but check your event logs, it's there. It's even less noticeable if you run .NET apps, hell you can have processes restart themselves every minute if you want, then IIS6 would be really "stable". But if you run any classic ASP apps it's more noticeable when a thread dogs and all your sessions disappear.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Lotunggim Ginsawat]

*Went ahead and check the event log.....

Nope, the IIS6 here has not been restarted for nearly 2 months already (the last time I patched the server and restarted it). Maybe, just maybe, you do not know how to keep an IIS6 installation stable?

IIS5 is shit though.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Sproggit]

Unixish? What about us OPENVMS hosting dinosaurs, you insensitive clod!

Also, I quite regularly change the host headers on apache to report IIS, this screws a bit with the script kiddies.
Pretty sure I'm not the only one...

The Sproggg

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

That would be the system log, not the application log, and you should look for event ID's 1077, 1074, 1013, etc. They're there. Even if you just left IIS6's default app pool configuration it restarts threads every 1740 minutes. So either 1) You changed the app pool settings for every app pool you have to never, ever restart worker processes and they never hit virtual memory limits (unlikely), or 2) you're lying.

Maybe, just maybe, you do not know how to keep an IIS6 installation stable? Or maybe, just maybe, I run many sites that people actually use.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[hab136]

When trying to find out how many servers that are running IIS or Apache or some other http-server, counting IP's are much more valid than counting sites for just that reason.
If one IIS server has one thousand sites, it is still just one IIS server installation.
If one Apache server has one thousand sites, it is still just one Apache server installation.
Any other way of counting is invalid.

For counting hosts, yes IP is better.
For counting popularity of Apache vs IIS with customers, sites is better.

Think of this example:
20 IPs are IIS, with 40 sites
10 IPs are Apache, with 80 sites

That means that although there are twice as many machines running IIS, it also means that there are twice as many customers that chose an Apache-based hosting provider.

It really depends on what you want to measure.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[MightyMartian]

Or maybe, just maybe, I run many sites that people actually use.

Indeed, I'm getting quite suspicious that the people trumpeting the wonders of IIS aren't having to deal with even moderate load issues. IIS is like Frontpage, easy for the beginner, but a real bugger once you want to move farther down the road.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

MS didn't make IIS more stable, they gave more process isolation capability and the ability for a watcher process to orphan a thread and start a new one when one did become unstable. So you're saying that Microsoft's is supposed to make third party applications more stable via IIS?

Give me a break.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

5.0 (which shipped initially with 2000) couldn't, but 5.1 (a later upgrade) could

IIS 5.0 has always supported virtual hosts. IIS 5.1 comes with Windows XP and was never released for Windows 2000.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Kalriath]

That's (surprisingly) not true. I have worked with Win2000 servers with IIS 5.1 installed.

Yes, it confused me at the time too.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Lotunggim Ginsawat]

Hahaha, event 1077? For god sake, do you know what event 1077 indicates? When event 1077 happened (you should know what it is if you administer IIS6), a duplicate thread is made and then replaced the old one. This does not mean that availability is compromised, it will always still be 100%. Restart is not the right word, replaced is the right one.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

"Orphaned" is actually the correct word. Yes, I do know what the event means, I didn't have to google it like you. My point wasn't that the site isn't available and no where did I indicate that. And you have a loose definition of what 100% availability means - when a thread is orphaned, any users being served on that thread get an unresponsive site. Also if they refresh the page and pick up the new worker process then their previous session cookie is gone. I don't call that 100%. My point is that IIS still has threads crash unrecoverably, and instead of fixing the problem of threads crashing, IIS6 just lets it crash and starts a new one up automagically. So, again again again, since my simple point seems to be over your heads, IIS6 is not more stable than IIS5.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

I re-read my post and I missed the part where I said Microsoft has to make 3rd party applications more stable. I guess you just made up a straw-man argument since you're incapable of arguing your point based on its own merits. But don't worry, I'll bite...

I can only assume the 3rd party applications you're speaking of would be the websites that are running on IIS. That's like saying if Word crashes when you're typing a letter to your grandmother that it's your fault for typing something that made Word crash. So no, any website you run on IIS shouldn't be able to crash IIS (apache is capable of this) just like any letter you type in Word shouldn't crash Word. It may crash the third party application itself, but that's not IIS's concern.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

And I just wanted to further explain why "orphan" is the correct word over "replace". IIS won't initially kill it's own thread. When it orphans a worker process (thread), that means it just stops sending new requests to that process, but it allows it to continue running in case the thread is capable of resolving any outstanding requests on its own. So the new thread and the orphaned one can both be running at the same time. In the case of event 1077 specifically, the thread isn't even necessarily bad, it has just used more memory than what the virtual memory limit is set to, but by orphaning the process it allows a more graceful shutdown (once all outstanding requests have been served the thread will kill itself).

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

Google shows no reference of IIS 5.1 ever being available Windows 2000. Feel free to point me to some reference that shows otherwise though.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

I can only assume the 3rd party applications you're speaking of would be the websites that are running on IIS. No. I'm talking about dlls and executables which run inside of application pools. Examples would things like jakarta, servelet exec, perl or php. I fail to see how these third party applications misbehaving are the fault of IIS.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[cecil_turtle]

That is a good point, but many of those 3rd party apps install by default in CGI mode, which runs as a separate process and still shouldn't crash IIS. Your point is only valid if running in ISAPI mode, and even then I'm not 100% sure that IIS shouldn't still be responsible for stability.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Kalriath]

The only reference I have is the web servers I dealt with which were running it. It doesn't surprise me that Google shows no reference though, as Google is not the definitive core of the internet and doesn't know everything.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Lotunggim Ginsawat]

Yeah, orphaned is a better word indeed. But contrary to what you say, those users served by those orphaned thread will not get a unresponsive site to the point they need to refresh the page and/or renew cookies (renew cookies is highly unlikely). IIS6 use a little-known feature new in Windows Server 2003 (but common in UNIX environment) that allows 2 same process/threads to run side-by-side, copying the state of the old process to the new one. You should be able to see them in action when patching the OS. When the 107x event ID happened, IIS will create an identical thread and kill the old one. IIS does not let the orphaned threads/processes crashes, instead the resources they takes will be reclaimed. If IIS let them crashed as you said, the WIndows Server will need to be restarted every other day (depending on load) just to reclaim resources, which is not exactly correct.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

Then I don't believe you.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[Kalriath]

Good for you. I don't care what you think.

Re:GoDaddy and the like?

[toadlife]

You should probably edit the wikipedia article on IIS.

What?!

[Stormx2]

Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

People (I.T. guys included) will almost always go with what they are comfortable with. IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time. With Apache, it's not so simple. Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple. And some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS.

I personally use Apache on my servers. But I could also take my good old time configuring them because I'm not planning on making any money from them.

Re:What?!

[mwilliamson]

At least in higher education, you sometimes find yourself having to run 3rd-party software that requires IIS. In a nutshell we do all our in-house development on pure LAMP, but departments tend to buy commercial software that won't run on LAMP at all. This same software tends to own/modify/taint the IIS machines so they become single-purposed windows servers. Hopefully Vmware ESX is gonna tame that beast sooner or later for us.

Michael

Re:What?!

[plague3106]

IIS comes with Windows servers and has an easy configuration GUI?

Re:What?!

[realmolo]

There is, in fact, a reason not to use Apache.

The configuration/managment tools suck. In fact, they're mostly non-existent. To get the most out of Apache, you are going to be editing configuration files by hand.

Now, don't get me wrong, Apache is great, and dealing with the configuration issues is not THAT difficult, and the benefits are worth the effort. But MAN. IIS is *so* much easier to deal with when it comes to 99% of the configuration duties that you need to do on a web server. The defaults are sane, almost everything just takes a few clicks to set up.

Now, if you want to AUTOMATE configuration of your webserver, obviously IIS royally sucks compared to Apache. But for clarity and simplicity of configuration, IIS wins by a mile. It's not even close.

Re:What?!

[moderatorrater]

The sheer usefulness of mod_rewrite makes up for all that imho.

Re:What?!

[morgan_greywolf]

To get the most out of Apache, you are going to be editing configuration files by hand.

So? The config files are drop-dead easy. Easier than poking your way through a GUI maze, IMHO.

Re:What?!

[certain death]

The defaults are NOT sane. Would you enable 40/128 encryption if it were up to you? I know I would not. Would you setup a default website that any idiot can put on the internet that allows control over the very same webserver via a web interface? Nope, Not me...need I say more, or is that enough?

Re:What?!

[Tuoqui]

So if the Apache team makes a GUI option for configurations then it would probably start gaining the lost market share back?

Also the only other reason I can imagine a windows machine to be running IIS in comparison to Linux with Apache is if you're a smaller company with only a few windows servers and cant really afford extra dedicated server hardware.

Re:What?!

[Zeinfeld]

Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O

If you are using Visual Studio dotNet as your development environment you are not going to find Apache works too well.

The netcraft survey is bunk because it measures a quantity that has always been irrelevant. In the past the market share of Apache was artificially inflated because most parked domains would sit on Apache boxes. Now Microsoft has identified that as an issue they are starting to get the advantage.

The quantity of interest is not who supplies the Web server but what the development platform is. As a practical matter any code of interest can run on ISS but rather less can run on Apache and less again on LAMP.

And there is no guarantee that the code engine will be visible in any case. You could easily have an IIS back end written in dotNET being served up through a squid front end.

And the rate of use says nothing as to whether the software is any damn good. There are still plenty of FORTRAN and COBOL coders even though the languages are abysmal.

Re:What?!

[masdog]

So? The config files are drop-dead easy. Easier than poking your way through a GUI maze, IMHO.
Different strokes for different folks. Some people love config files and text editors, others find GUIs, even the poor ones, easier to use. That all comes down to personal preference.

Re:What?!

[aldousd666]

At present .NET seems to be gaining ground as a platform. I know that apache supports some version of it, but if companies are looking to take advantage of all of the benefits of .net and the new WCF (like IIS hosted WCF services, which are as easy to set up as a config file,) then they probably go with something they can phone up support and get covered on. Also, with using Microsoft for .net there is no waiting for the Mono to get feature X covered. I think between ASP.NET ajax, and .NET 3.0, a lot of folks are looking at IIS as a viable option. Not that there aren't better things offered by apache, but if I were guessing, and I am, I'd guess this is the reason you'll see an upsurge. Sharepoint 2007 hosting may also have some contribution to this set of numbers as well. I don't think people really know what's good for them most of the time, which is why you see everyone always taking the path that's of least resistance (today,) and at the moment, for asp.net apps, that's IIS.

Re:What?!

[TheRaven64]

Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple. You can say that again. The pseudo-XML in httpd.conf makes me long for something nice and simple like sendmail.mc...

Re:What?!

[Conor Turton]

So if the Apache team makes a GUI option for configurations then it would probably start gaining the lost market share back?

Only as long as they don't get the same GUI team that The GIMP project uses. People wouldn't just be crawling away from Apache, they'd be running.

Seriously, some FOSS projects need to get more serious about the front ends. Editing config files by hand is so 1990's. Maybe that's why FOSS doesn't get taken as seriously as it should, because it looks like it harps back to DOS days.

Re:What?!

[walt-sjc]

Having used both extensively over the past 10 years, IMHO 90% of the config tasks are easier with IIS for a non-expert, but
5% are MUCH harder, and the remaining 5% you just can't do at all. Period. It's that 5% that makes IIS a non-option for me personally. For some of the sites we host, either server would work fine, but in those cases, there is no reason to pay a license fee for IIS.

One of the other benefits of having worked with both apache and IIS is that that 90% of what is normally easier in IIS really isn't if you develop internal tools to do that work for apache. In fact, a single web page with just a few fields on it runs a script that sets up DNS, apache, firewall, database, chroot jail, and optionally even an entire virtual machine, fully configured and running.

It's just "by default" those scripts are not included with Apache like they are with IIS.

Also, once you learn the Apache syntax and understand how things work, it turns out that using an editor isn't any harder than the IIS GUI. In fact, it's usually MUCH easier/faster for anything repetitive.

Re:What?!

[TheRaven64]

You can run Apache on Windows. A (good) Windows configuration tool would probably help deployment on Windows a lot.

Re:What?!

[ameoba]

some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS.

A "n00b admin" isn't going to be able to master anything in a weekend. They might figure out how to set something up & get it working but mastery is a long ways off.

Re:What?!

[quanticle]

The other problem with GUI configuration is debugging. With text-based configuration you can grep or use a text editor to search for the setting you want to change. Searching for a particular setting with a GUI is more difficult unless you have a photographic memory and can remember the exact location of the checkbox/radiobutton/whatever that needs to be changed.

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

Agreed. Maybe "master" was a poor choice of a word. Maybe "become familiar enough to do useful things with" would be better.

Re:What?!

[zig007]

Easier to configure IIS than apache?
Hell no, i use webmin for that(unless tweaking is needed). Can't get much easier.

No one "masters" IIS in one week.
In many ways, IIS is way more complex and difficult than Apache.

Apache, on the other hand, has a certain "way" everything is done. If one bother to RTFM and learn that "way", one can actually "master" apache in a weekend. Or at least be securely productive.

IIS has one way for each thing and it is relatively common for different parts to conflict with each other.

Security on IIS is really hard. It is really easy to forget some obscure setting, because of all those damn tabs.

Troubleshooting an IIS server is also really hard. Its logging plain sucks(although it has gotten better) and almost the entire operating system is involved in answering a regular http-request. Also, i have on 2 or 3 occasions had its settings database go corrupt on me. Which is fantastically difficult to deduce since things just slowly deteriorates for no apparent/actual reason.

And, sometimes, when for example the permissioning subsystem crashes(aaaaaarrrrgghh..), only a reboot works. Great.

Re:What?!

[krgallagher]

"So if the Apache team makes a GUI option for configurations then it would probably start gaining the lost market share back? "

Here are several GUI administration tools for Apache.

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

Might I direct your attention to my reply to the above post.

Re:What?!

[BasharTeg]

Have you ever used .NET? That's why.

Since we've converted our systems and middleware development to C# .NET, all of our developers have become much much more effective. The defect rates of our new C# code compared to our old C++ code are microscopic. We've converted our Apache based SOAP server to ASP.NET's XML WebServices and found that the development is faster, the code is cleaner, and again the defect rate is down. Our web development is currently in PHP, but we've found that if our web developers write C# / ASP.NET, our systems developers can help out with quality control, supplying code samples and advice, and even directly coding for the web. We're in the process of planning the ASP.NET version of our web applications.

The simple fact is, whether you like Microsoft or not, .NET is a great platform for the rapid development of low defect applications. If you don't develop on Windows, give Mono a shot. I consider their successful efforts to be amazing.

For our purposes, the fact that we use .NET and we want to stay on the .NET train (advancements in IIS7 are going to be very useful to us) using IIS6 as our webserver is a no-brainer.

Apache certainly works, but the question for us is, why use Apache? What is so compelling about Apache that would make us want to give up IIS6? We've used Apache for years and continue to do so to this day, but it isn't doing anything special for us except hosting PHP scripts (the performance of which, even with an accelerator, could be better).

Re:What?!

[sheldon]

IIS config can be scripted relatively easily if you are doing anything repetitive.

The negative, is the documentation is lame and you sometimes have to figure it out through trial and error. Usually someone has already done it, and you cna find the solution on google.

Re:What?!

[plague3106]

I'm guessing its be a while since you last touched an MS product.

Re:What?!

[oliverthered]

IIS is very easy to configure, except when it doesn't do what it says on the tin, in which case it's impossible to configure.

I've never had that kind of problem with apache.

Re:What?!

[plague3106]

Having used both extensively over the past 10 years, IMHO 90% of the config tasks are easier with IIS for a non-expert, but
5% are MUCH harder, and the remaining 5% you just can't do at all. Period. It's that 5% that makes IIS a non-option for me personally.

What 5% is harder or not possible?

Re:What?!

[certain death]

Yeah...I scanned 6 default installs of Windows 2003 server on Friday...

Re:What?!

[oliverthered]

Lets say you have some content you want to share across a number of servers.
Because Windows doesn't support symlinks you have to setup a virtual directory in IIS that points to the correct server..

The problem is as soon as you throw in scripting it doesn't work any more.

Re:What?!

[Sycraft-fu]

"There are still plenty of FORTRAN and COBOL coders even though the languages are abysmal."

That's a pretty ignorant statement. I know very little about COBOL, but Fortran is a very useful language. It is extremely well suited to numerical and scientific computation. That's a small market, to be sure, but an important one. There's a reason why the most recent standard came out in 2003 and another is in the works (tentively Fortran 2008). There's a reason why Intel sells high performance compilers for two languages: C/C++ and Fortran, which they actively update.

There is no such thing as a "best" programming language. They are tools and you should use the right tool for the job. You can accomplish a given job with essentially any tool (by necessity, any Turing complete language can do anything any other can, including implement the other language) but that doesn't mean they are all created equal. Just because you don't like Fortran doesn't mean it doesn't have uses.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

This history of modern interface design argues against you. For most people, most of the time, a GUI is vastly more discoverable than even one config file, much less a collection thereof. Add in the fact that just a few errors with an apache config file can bring down your whole site with cryptic error messages, and you suddenly understand why for most folks, the IIS gui is A) more discoverable and B) a safer work environment than httpd.conf, proxy.conf, ssl.conf, and the 50 some conf files in my proxydb directory, etc.

I work at a company that runs our business off of apache. It's a great server with great uptime, performance, and scalability.

It is not, however, easy to manage. Messing with those conf files in prod requires a pair of knowlegeable people looking over each other's shoulders to make sure they don't make typos or forget steps. Even the automated stuff we script can easily go wrong if we run into a server limit of some sort that requires changes outside of the "norms" the script expects.

Re:What?!

[oliverthered]

The defaults are not sane e.g. they allow post and debug to most extensions. The defaults should be secure and it should be for the administrator to make changes to the configuration that may be unsecure.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

With a GUI you can see what options are available, having to search for an option you don't know the title of, or is nonexistant in the text file in this case makes it much harder for those accustomed to clicky clicky.

Re:What?!

[Chatterton]

I never used IIS but I have get Apache running with my domain name and some sub-domain in less than 4 hour the first time I installed it. It was a 'simple' matter of reading the sample config file, changing option here and there with the guidance of the comments and copy/pasting the sample sub-domains to create all my sub-domains.
The biggest difficulty I have got with Apache was to install SSL and WebDav on SSL. I have put 2 days to have them all up and running with my home made certificate (one of the hardest parts was to find how to create the certificate and configuring apache to have both SSL and non-SSL sub-domains)...
The next step is to have SVN installed and get a versioning filesystem in a webdav folder on SLL... But I have already worked 2 weekends on SVN without having it running as a standalone server :(

I am far from mastering Apache, but I can say that I am able to make it do what I want it to do. And I have do it in a reasonable time frame from a complete newbie point of view.

Re:What?!

[Tjp($)pjT]

Simple solution. Use Apache on Mac OS X Server. GUI admin for the simple stuff like turning mods on and off configing sites to map to IP addrs and so on, even aliases and redirects and realm based security... Anything much more intense and there are the config files. Trust me. We used NT servers and were one of the first ISPs to do so, then used IIS when MS intro'ed it. Life was pretty good. Then security and reliability became concerns then more complex management and being forced into using other MS software in conjunction with IIS. Mac OS X Server and Apache beat that hands down. And while our old but still small ISP would love modern dual power supply dual fiber connect xServes from Apple we actually chug along on mac mini bought refurbished from Apple. At 1/2 U apiece, averaged over 8 units in 4U of space, it is a cheap alternative to low end blad servers and very very conservative on power.

Re:What?!

[the_womble]

The defect rates of our new C# code compared to our old C++ code are microscopic.

Well, that is a surprise! Why not drop the apples to oranges comparison and compare c# to Java?

Re:What?!

[codefungus]

You are right. I think it's a little easier for someone with no web server admin experience to setup IIS than Apache. However, Apache admins, on the whole, tend to be more knowledgeable of how things work than their IIS counterparts. This tends to be true all around whether it's a *nix operating system, shell scripting, databases, etc. I had one IT manager, when run into Oracle problems, get frustrated and suggest converting the whole database to one single flat file and having the application use that (The reason here is that this database was outside the world of MS. And to MS people, if something is outside that world, it's hopeless). And he was a Microsoft guy.
I love that little barrier to entry found outside of Microsoft. It ensure some minimum level of knowledge. That way I don't have to listen to some ASP programmer tell me how he likes the "IIS operating system" over the "Apache operating system". Let's just hope it stays that way.

Re:What?!

[Ant P.]

I stopped using it because lighttpd does everything I was using apache for. Less features = less stuff that can possibly break.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never gone looking for an IIS bug in a Windchill implementation.

It's physically impossible to scan through the configuration. You have to work you way down the tree, and then look through multiple screens of properties, and repeat.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have the right system, Apache can be really easy, too.

Re:What?!

[dk.r*nger]

IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time.

Let me see.. I install IIS and dump stuff in c:\inetpub (or whereever it is), and I've got a website.
I install apache and dump stuff in /var/www, and I've got a website. Last I checked, it was pretty much just as simple on windows.

For more complex setups, you need to go learn, and well, I know I prefer Apache. And yes, I've made complex configurations of IIS.
Please. Don't. Remind. Me.

Re:What?!

[jedidiah]

IIS: Because you want a trained monkey running your production webserver.

Re:What?!

[MBGMorden]

I kinda must agree there. I've always been an Apache guy. We use it on lots and lots of servers here, and it's never been that bad to setup. Recently though, we bought an app whose web component is ASP.NET based and needs to run on IIS. While it hasn't gotten me to switch off of Apache on my other boxes, I must say that the configuration utilities and flexibility (not degree but ease with which you can exercise it) was certainly a welcome thing. While I'm sure that Apache can probably do more when fine tuned, if IIS can do 80% of what Apache does with 20% of the effort, it's gonna win some converts.

Re:What?!

[vertinox]

If you are using Visual Studio dotNet as your development environment you are not going to find Apache works too well.

I guess the question is why then the Visual Studio.Net? ;)

I mean there is nothing wrong with it by itself, but you will eventually have to consider the whole cost of running the servers and the fact you have to run it on Windows.

This may not be an issue if money is not an option or if you've got a lot of people with Visual Studio experience on hand.

Otherwise... I don't see much Apache, PHP, and MySQL can't do for the small shops that the whole kit and caboodle MS could do either.

Re:What?!

[plague3106]

Well you're lying about something then, because there's no admin site that comes setup in IIS that's enabled and open to everyone by default. The default IIS install doesn't allow anything except static pages which IIS has MIME types for.

Re:What?!

[Pig Hogger]

The pseudo-XML in httpd.conf makes me long for something nice and simple like sendmail.mc...

Wimp. Real sysadmins work with sendmail.cf.

Re:What?!

[certain death]

HOLY SHIT!!! You just called me a liar and you don't even know me!!! Go fuck yourself.

Re:What?!

[evilviper]

IMHO 90% of the config tasks are easier with IIS for a non-expert, but 5% are MUCH harder, and the remaining 5% you just can't do at all. Period.

I think it's very important to add that those 90% of tasks you can perform with IIS, though possible, are not at all fast or easy to do, for amateur or expert. It takes a lot of fumbling around with menus that are in no particular order, with sub-sub-sub options, and nonsensical arbitrary style (interface) changes for some options.

"A stitch in time" has never been more appropriate than when applied to Microsoft software.

Re:What?!

[molarmass192]

It is really easy to forget some obscure setting, because of all those damn tabs.

I don't know about obscurity, but there is something good about being able to check-in config changes into version control. I think tab based configuration of anything on a server is just asking for trouble. I'll take plain text (ok XML) over some binary cruft socked away in a registry or a plist any day. I wish MS would accept that the registry was a bad idea and move back to a text config model, even a half-baked-but-better-than regedt one like the old .INI scheme. Cue the single vs multibyte vs hex vs management comments ...

Re:What?!

[iminplaya]

Maybe "become familiar enough to do useful things with" would be better.

In aviation parlance, it's "Knowing just enough to be dangerous". While Microsoft can enable trained monkeys to run the IT department, it will produce more lock-in, thus more dependency on what will be very expensive paid support if market share reaches a certain mass, and lower salaries. Win-win for the bean counters everywhere.

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

Oracle on an MS box... I'm sorry. I think I just had something crazy in my ear. Could you repeat that?

Re:What?!

[Lord_Slepnir]

Also the only other reason I can imagine a windows machine to be running IIS in comparison to Linux with Apache is if you're a smaller company with only a few windows servers and cant really afford extra dedicated server hardware.

If they can't afford the extra hardware for a "Free" installation of Linux / Apache, what makes you think that they can afford the Windows Server + IIS license? Windows Server 2003 +IIS is almost as expensive as a cheap server

Re:What?!

[dc29A]

Security on IIS is really hard. It is really easy to forget some obscure setting, because of all those damn tabs. What is so hard in IIS security? Care to elaborate.

Re:What?!

[plague3106]

You claimed you installed six Win2k3 and the default was IIS on and an IIS administration site already setup and open to the world, and that's simply not true. I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to call someone who isn't telling the truth. I'm not going to get too upset by someone who's posts start at 0 at any rate.

Re:What?!

[baggins2001]

Some nOOb could think they have mastered IIS in a weekend. Because they could get a web site up and running. That's really part of the problem. People setting up Web Servers not knowing what they are doing.
It's akin to people thinking they are CEO material, just because they can make a power point presentation.

Re:What?!

[moosesocks]

People (I.T. guys included) will almost always go with what they are comfortable with. IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time. With Apache, it's not so simple. Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple. And some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS.

Really?

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

This gives you a setup that works right off the bat, and is reasonably secure. IIS has *nothing* on Apache. Configuring a more flexible site does take a bit of elbow grease, but I wouldn't say that it's any more than IIS.

Upgrades are also a cinch, and don't require a reboot.

Re:What?!

[moosesocks]

You can say that again. The pseudo-XML in httpd.conf makes me long for something nice and simple like sendmail.mc...

Be careful of using technology-related sarcasm on slashdot. Somebody's going to read that, mod it as 'Insightful', and mean it.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

With Apache, it's not so simple. Actually, it is. Much more simple for large sites, in fact, then pointy-clicky IIS.
I am able to programmatically generate the site configurations for as many domains as I like, by simply listing them one per line in a text file.

Can IIS do that? Something tells me you've never had to "pointy clicky" setup 100+ domains on an IIS box...

Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple No, it's not simple - but I spent less than 2 hours educating myself on Apache and the result was a very fast and streamlined server deployment process.

The program to generate the configuration data took less than a half an hour from start to deploy. Then all I had to do was create the text file with the domains listed.

So actually, it IS so simple.

Re:What?!

[Ecuador]

"It is extremely well suited to numerical and scientific computation."

Right. That's what they actually told us in a first-year University course that had us learning FORTRAN. While this statement was perfectly accurate a few decades ago, more appropriate now is to say "It is extremely ill suited for anything but numerical and scientific computation".
Don't get me wrong. I actually liked writing "numerical recipies"-style stuff in FORTRAN. However it is clear that it no longer holds any advantage (but many obvious disadvantages) over more "modern" languages.
While the language itself holds no advanages, just because of the fact that it USED to have the advantage there is now an enormous amount of scientific FORTRAN code out there. If you don't want to write something from scratch, you might find a FORTRAN library that works. Yes, if you did start from scratch you would not choose FORTRAN nowadays, but if it is there already why not? And this is the reason FORTRAN is still alive. It is no particularly good, it is just adequate. But because it was once the best in some areas, chances are that something you want to use is already written in FORTRAN.

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

My point was all about the adoption of Apache vs. IIS. As is apparent with the people who replied to my post, different admins are comfortable with different server apps. Hence their adoption of their favored app.

With the proliferation of Windows UI, I would be willing to say that most newcomers would feel more comfortable setting-up IIS with some sort of Wizard than typing things in command line. It's all about your comfort zone.

BTW, Apache is still ahead according to the numbers. With the improvements being made with UI configuration, Apache isn't for just the 1337 anymore. I just wonder how many newbies know that.

Re:What?!

[PPH]

IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time. With Apache, it's not so simple.

Perhaps IIS is too easy.

A few years ago, I worked for a large corporation (it had one of the largest intranets in the world at the time) and had to manage apps on several Apache servers. One day, a bunch of my fellow administrators noticed some weird URLs in our logs. These turned out to be the first of many waves of virii that had slipped into the corporate system and were propagating throughout the IIS servers. When we contacted the administrators for the infected systems, many of them denied even having IIS running, their systems being Exchange/SQL servers. It turns out that IIS automatically configures itself when many other products are installed so as to give the admins web administration abilities. Since these people had no idea that IIS had started itself on all these systems, they missed the patches needed to keep these systems secure. In addition, many of these systems' configuration defaults were so insecure, pretty much anyone in the company could jump on and mess around with them.

The moral of the story is: you really don't want administrative tasks to be too easy. There's a certain level of knowledge and experience needed to keep these systems secure and stable. Once the administrators have achieved this level, dealing with Apache (and many other) text config files becomes trivial.

Re:What?!

[misleb]

eople (I.T. guys included) will almost always go with what they are comfortable with. IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time. With Apache, it's not so simple. Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple.

True, but I don't think many people spend THAT much time figuring it out. Apache comes working out of the box on nearly all Linux distributions. Maybe you tweak it a little, but not everyone is spending days trying to figure it out. PHP, MySQL, etc all work out of the box. Though I agree, if you want much more than that you can spend some time figuring it out.

And some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS.

Whoa, wait a minute there... "mastery?" Microsoft products might be easy to setup initially, but that doesn't in any way make them easy to master. I've been using Windows on and off for 20 years and I am far , far from mastery. Like most Windows admins (or Unix admins forced to admin Windows from time to time, as the case may be), I just do what is necessary to get it running and then I just cross my fingers and hope it stays running. Many of hte more interesting features remain hidden.

Anyway, I'd first like to see the numbers of sites/servers with hosting providers versus private server before I make any guesses and/or generalities about why people might be using IIS.

-matthew

Re:What?!

[joost]

I couldn't agree more. That's why I've switched to LiteSpeed.

Supposedly it's a big no-no to say you don't like hand editing httpd.conf. It's not considered leet I guess. But I find LiteSpeed's built-in admin panel so much easier to work with. I can just go in there, add a hostname, gracefully restart the server and be done in under 5 seconds.

Beats ssh'ing and vim'ing a semi-xml file IMO.

Re:What?!

[toadlife]

Win-win for the bean counters everywhere. And the bean counters rule. You support the GP's point nicely.

Re:What?!

[toadlife]

I'll take plain text (ok XML) Actually, IIS's configuration is stored in XML, and you can edit it by hand instead of using the GUI if you really want to.

Re:What?!

[thatskinnyguy]

Might I direct your attention here The use of "mastery" was a bit of a poor choice.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am able to programmatically generate the site configurations for as many domains as I like, by simply listing them one per line in a text file.

Can IIS do that?

IIS has an XML based configuration, so....yes.

Re:What?!

[TheNetAvenger]

People (I.T. guys included) will almost always go with what they are comfortable with. IIS is very easy to configure and you could have a Windows Server up and running in no time. With Apache, it's not so simple. Modifying text files gives the admins great control over nearly everything; but it's not so simple. And some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS.


Although these are good reasons, it goes beyond just the administration side of things. Any good IT person should be able to assemble an Apache or IIS server.

The catch is when users or site developers or site owners start asking for features. With IIS you can give them anything Apache has, and when you get the users asking for Sharepoint or .NET features or ASP features or even older FP Extension/CGI features, it is ALL available.

If you are only running Apache then your options are limited, especially with the new movement in .NET and server side programming coming out of MS. MS has been working hard on becoming standards compliant and in the process creating a large set of tools for developers. From AJAX development to XAML applications over the internet, MS has been pushing up the game and part of this is in addition to the .NET foundations and new communication mechanisms.

Of course there is some .NET functions that can be used on Apache, but there is a loss of features and productivity for average developers that doesn't have to be worried about with IIS.

There is also support for non-IIS features that you gain in the Windows server world, application side tools to MS SQL, etc. And with IIS and Windows you can still do MySQL and PHP and have all of them active for the site users at the same time depending on what they want/need.

As for features Apache has over IIS, I would open this post as a place for people to post things Apache does that IIS can't, and I mean this in terms of providing features to the end users/developers. (i.e. It doesn't run on BSD, is not a good example.)

Re:What?!

[dave562]

A lot of those issues have been addressed with IIS 6 and Server 2003. For example, IIS isn't turned on by default anymore. The admins in question were pretty incompetent none the less. There is absolutely no excuse for not knowing what is running on your servers. I have to agree with you about Apache/*nix admins being more competent than your average MS admin. There are some benefits to having to build everything from the ground up. I'm sure that we will see a gradual dumbing down of *nix admins as distros like Ubuntu and GUI interfaces become more common. I think that is the way of things. Common tasks get automated. Difficult tasks get scripted. After a while, people run the scripts and aren't even aware of what happens automatically. That is both good and bad. It's good because it allows more people to implement the OS and applications. It's bad because those who are now able to implement them aren't as competent as the guys who had to "configure them from scratch, at 2400 baud, on a dumb terminal... with their eyes closed and without any caffine." =)

Re:What?!

[guruevi]

Then you never had REAL problems with .NET/IIS. I have worked for the largest hosting companies in the largest datacenters, as soon as a single .NET script has an error (either due to bad coders (Microsoft must have the worst coders) or due to problems inherit to the language) it takes the whole IIS installation down, sometimes even the whole machine. The only way to circumvent that is to use artificial limits within IIS and identify the problem. The issue that each .NET Application Pool takes about 80M to start up and usually uses 300-700M by the time it crashes is not really a help either.

Re:What?!

[toadlife]

We recently installed a massive blade center/SAN and converted all of our servers over to ESX. It has allowed us all but eliminate the dreaded "single purpose Windows server", because testing is so much easier and faster.

Re:What?!

[asc99c]

With XAMPP it really is pretty simple. I've just reinstalled my PC and used XAMPP once again. It's a quick graphic installer that gives you an immediate working LAMP stack. All that was left to do was set the MySQL data directory and Apache document root to the copied folder from my previous install and all the database apps were back up and running.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

All I can say for Apache config or linux config in general. I run ALOT of servers........

dssh

--

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem I find is, with Apache, from one version to the next I can expect configuration options to be in the same place. With MS gui configurations the options sometimes move to other locations. So after an upgrade or moving to a new version it can make it harder to get things the way I want. I am not that sure about IIS because I try to stay away but I have noticed this with other MS products.

Re:What?!

[Just Some Guy]

Now, if you want to AUTOMATE configuration of your webserver, obviously IIS royally sucks compared to Apache. But for clarity and simplicity of configuration, IIS wins by a mile.

In my opinion, those are goals are identical. For example, I host about 20 Drupal sites on a server. Their configurations are almost the same, so adding a new host involves copying a template file and editing the domain name like so:

$ cp drupaltemplate www.example.com.conf
$ vi www.example.com.conf
$ cat www.example.com.conf
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.example.com
CustomLog /var/log/httpd/www.example.com-access.log combined

Include etc/apache22/Includes/drupal-common
</VirtualHost >

Done. If my Drupal configuration ever changes, it's automatically propagated across every host that uses it. Toss in SVN for version control so that you can always track changes and you have a pretty nice setup that's dead easy to maintain or replicate to other servers.

IIS is very easy to set up for one domain. Apache is far easier when setting up more than one domain.

Re:What?!

[PPH]

A lot of those issues have been addressed with IIS 6 and Server 2003.

I really have to wonder about that, particularly given the way the IIS servers were started in the IT department I worked in. True, IIS may not get started automatically on a bare bones server, but when the admins start configuring some other package (SQL Server, for example) and they are using a web interface to do so where the h*ll do they think the web pages are coming from?

True, a bare bones Windows server is secure. So long as it isn't running anything and preferably not plugged into the network.

I'm not too worried about *NIX administrators getting lazy. I've seen some pretty slick and easy to use GUI configuration tools (SAM on old HP-UX systems, for example). Most of the admins just went straight to the files in /etc.

Re:What?!

[Skapare]

Yes, Apache gives more control. And yes, IIS lets you have a web server up without having to control so much.

So there are more people in control of web servers that don't care about giving up control, and will take the easy route. I see that more and more on web sites that suck, anyway.

Re:What?!

[tuaris]

I've seen those, and tried them. Comache is commercial and webmin is, well webmin. The rest are garbage.

We need something similar to OS X's GUI. Fedora has an Apache GUI that works somewhat decently, but unfortunately I found myself at many times going right to the text files due to the GUI being incomplete or buggy.

Re:What?!

[Just Some Guy]

I know very little about COBOL [...]

I'm noticing the conspicuous lack of people jumping in to defend COBOL.

There is no such thing as a "best" programming language.

True, but there are quite a few competing for "worst".

Re:What?!

[dave420]

You should have read those linked products' websites a bit more carefully before posting that :) None of them allow for GUI vhost editing, one doesn't work with Windows, one hasn't been updated since 2003, and one doesn't exist anymore. Not really a great example of the GUIs available for controlling Apache. The ones that work rely on you still editing files by hand, though they do give you an easy way of editing them, which is something completely alien to any IIS administrator.

Re:What?!

[Christianfreak]

A n00b admin is going to get a server that's already installed with Apache already configured.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The configuration/managment tools suck. In fact, they're mostly non-existent. To get the most out of Apache, you are going to be editing configuration files by hand.

Ever try to copy/paste someone's gui screenshot to configure your server? Text based config files make online community support work. Describing your configuration to someone else when all you have is a bunch of gui dialogs sucks eggs. People who can't deal with configuration files aren't sysadmins, they're trained monkeys, and have the salaries to match.

Re:What?!

[Tom]

A "n00b admin" isn't going to be able to master anything in a weekend. They might figure out how to set something up & get it working but mastery is a long ways off. Which sums up the whole windos universe problem very nicely.

Yes, I know current versions of IIS don't even compare to, say IIS 4. I also know that Active Directory and all the other nice features enable you to set up a really great corporate network with some tough security.

Problem is: 99% of the windos admins and/or MCSE people don't know shit. There are exceptions. I've met some. They are a minority. Most corporate networks are run by what in other industries would equate to apprentices.

Yes, there are know-nothings in the Unix world, too. But they are weeded out faster because it's harder to cover your inabilities and in result the ratio is probaly reversed.

Re:What?!

[Tom]

Yes and no.

I've successfully fixed and restarted a broken Apache configuration on a Palm III going online via mobile phone and IR link (I was on the train, no other option for at least half an hour).

Try that with IIS. And no, that wasn't a minor thing, the company was losing an estimated 500 for every minute the server was down.

There are many good reasons why plain-text configuration files are still a good idea in 2007. One of them is that if you want a flashy GUI go and write one. You can. It's an open, well-documented, easy-to-implement format.

Re:What?!

[archen]

It's typically not very efficient and a resource hog. Has a really crappy config file. FCGI support is garbage.

Re:What?!

[Draek]

but Microsoft products have a tendency to make n00bs of every kind *feel* they've mastered their tools, hence their natural preference.

Re:What?!

[Mattsson]

What it needed is for most of the more popular server-distributions to agree on a standard apache-tool and have it install as a default when installing Apache, or maybe even for Apache to include good GUI-tools in it's own standard installation.
Of course it must be optional to install it, for the admins who prefer another toolkit or to use vi or some such.

The most common problem in using open source is not the availability of tools for a certain job, but a lack of uniformity.
If I go from one LAMP-server to another, most tools will be different. The only secure point it going directly to the config-files with an editor.
But even then, the placement and internal structure of these config-files might differ between two LAMP-servers just because they are of different distributions of sometimes even just different versions of the same dist.
If I do the installations my self, no problem. I can choose what and how to install.
If I have to work with servers that someone else has installed, which was the case most of the time when I worked as an IT-consultant, I have enough experience to work around it, but it's still annoying.

Re:What?!

[backwardMechanic]

"It is extremely well suited to numerical and scientific computation."

I wish it wasn't true. It's nasty, horrible, ugly to write and maintain. But it is still true, it's damn fast. I write high performance EM simulators in C++. They're quite fast. On a really good day they'll reach the speed of the equivalent Fortran code. At best. I prefer C++ because I spend at least as much time messing with code as running it. The astrophysics guys here almost all write in Fortran. The protein folders too. If you're trying to simulate the whole universe, every bit of speed makes a difference and Fortran still has the edge. Sigh. Maybe I'll be forced back into writing it some day.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The hardest part about IIS security is that it uses the file system permissions for most (but not all) of the security. One thing this makes tricky is you can't always be sure what effective user various processes are running as, so you don't know what permissions they need. IIS 6 has improved this a bit, but IIS 4-5 were a bear to get working with a secured-down OS (e.g., one that didn't give "Everyone" read permission to C:\ and all sub-directories).

Then, you have the permissions that are controlled by the IIS GUI, like "read", "write", and "directory browsing" access. It's not hard, really, but the interaction between this and the file system permissions can cause you pain when things aren't working for some reason.

Re:What?!

[oh_my_080980980]

In a word, you're a moron. Why use IIS? Other than .NET why would anyone use it? Why would you tie yourself to that piece of crap.

Honestly if your expousing the virtues of .NET then you really haven't developed in .NET. If you like C#, then you should use Java, because that's what C# is. Java would give you a better avenue in development - certainly more stable.

Re:What?!

[Doug Neal]

sudo apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Easy yes, obvious no. That's the key difference. You have to know how to do it already. Windows makes it easier for the novice. I'm not saying that's a good thing though, when you're setting up a server facing the internet and need to be aware of security and so on.

Re:What?!

[zig007]

The hardest part about IIS security is that it uses the file system permissions for most (but not all) of the security. One thing this makes tricky is you can't always be sure what effective user various processes are running as, so you don't know what permissions they need. IIS 6 has improved this a bit, but IIS 4-5 were a bear to get working with a secured-down OS (e.g., one that didn't give "Everyone" read permission to C:\ and all sub-directories).

Then, you have the permissions that are controlled by the IIS GUI, like "read", "write", and "directory browsing" access. It's not hard, really, but the interaction between this and the file system permissions can cause you pain when things aren't working for some reason. Thanks, it think that about sums it up.
One more thing though, application pools add another layer of complexity, since they operate as some user, and that user has to be a member of special groups.
Add some roaming policies and a little bit more to that and you got my workplace right there :-)

Re:What?!

[FuzzyDaddy]

I set up a server on my DSL line. I'm not in IT (although I am an engineer), so as an Admin I'm pretty much a n00b. I got Apache up and running on a Sunday. This included installing the OS.

Re:What?!

[zig007]

Might I direct your attention to my reply to the above post Was it about recursion?

Re:What?!

[dave562]

I think what he was trying to say is that since IIS is an available option on Windows Server 2003, if a company is already running Server 2003 they would be more inclined to simply enable IIS 6 instead of finding another piece of hardware to do a seperate install of Apache on.

Re:What?!

[SgtChaireBourne]

Why not drop the apples to oranges comparison and compare c# to Java? I'll bet that was a strong intent behind calling it C# and not Java#.

Re:What?!

[zig007]

Actually, IIS's configuration is stored in XML, and you can edit it by hand instead of using the GUI if you really want to. Yes, except one don't want to:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=262047&cid=201 30679

Re:What?!

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

However it is clear that it no longer holds any advantage (but many obvious disadvantages) over more "modern" languages.

Performance. There are a number of things that Fortran has (or lacks) which make writing good optimizers easier.

Not that it matters 95% of the time, but when you're working with huge datasets and complex computations on mega-clusters, every little bit helps.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mastered their tools"?

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Re:What?!

[gral]

People Configure Apache Text files because they want to. There are tools to configure Apache Config via a GUI. Webmin lets you update through a browser.

The options are there. With MS, you are stuck with the GUI, even if you want to do something via a Text file.

Re:What?!

[anton_kg]

Your "n00b admin" might spend next other weekends clicking around tabs and not able to find some features. He would also need to install security patches and reboot his server on weekends because users would scream then server is down. Eventually, they will come to Apache/anyotherunixbased as a long-term solution.

Re:What?!

[moosesocks]

It's very obvious from the first two google results for 'ubuntu apache'.

I hate to be the one to call RTFM, but if you can set up your own domain name with a publicly-exposed IP address, you can most certainly install Apache on Ubuntu.

Re:What?!

[dc29A]

IIS has something like 5-6 places to configure for security for a full blown out of process COM supporting ASP application.

HTTPSSL service - not even sure if it's possible to run in under different credentials.
Inetinfo.exe - IIS itself.
W3wp.exe - Worker processes that run the application pools.
In process COM objects - the user running the w3wp.exe process needs read and execute rights on this folder or DLL file (if you want to be more granular).
Out of process COM objects or DCOM - service security and DCOM object execution priviledges.

And finally put the user running the worker processes into the IIS_WPG group (the only "special" group).

You are done!

How is that different from apache that needs chroot, .htaccess and various directory directives along with an application server configuration? Windows security is way more granular than *nix, it can be scary but IIS is not hard to modify security settings. People just need to understand the interactions between the different parts of the application, IIS ==> Worker process ==> Com/DCOM object ==> file system. Once you got those interactions down, modifying IIS security becomes a joke.

Also, IIS comes with pretty paranoid security settings out of the box so very little hardening is required.

Re:What?!

[oyenstikker]

"It's akin to people thinking they are CEO material, just because they can make a power point presentation."

But that _does_ make you CEO material.

Re:What?!

[petermgreen]

You can say that again. The pseudo-XML in httpd.conf makes me long for something nice and simple like sendmail.mc...
personally I have to say I quite like apaches configuration file format. It has an easy to follow struture that will be easy for anyone who is familiar with html to follow without the over-verboseness of xml.

Re:What?!

[glitch23]

if IIS can do 80% of what Apache does with 20% of the effort, it's gonna win some converts.

IIS allows 80% of crackers to break into your system with 20% of the effort of Apache. It wins converts, just not the type we want./p.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

You do of course realize that IIS stores its settings in a plain-text XML file, right? And you do of course realize that the GUI administration is just one of the many ways you can administer IIS, right? You can use that, you can modify the XML file, you can use one of the COM admin interfaces to administer it programmatically.

So if you dont like the damn tabs, dont use the damn tabs.

I dont know why this sort of thing keeps coming up over and over again. Nearly every windows system gives you at least 3-4 ways to administer anything:

1. GUI
2. Config file
3. COM interface (programmatic admin)
4. Command Line tool

Re:What?!

[Elgonn]

Actually Windows does support symlinks. You just won't find a tool to create/edit/delete from within the basic Explorer. NTFS has supported them for a long time. I've done what you're proposing with IIS.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

The options are there. With MS, you are stuck with the GUI, even if you want to do something via a Text file. Or you could use the text file that underlies the GUI.

Or you could use the COM interop to admin IIS.

Or you could use the command line tools that ship with IIS.

But dont let facts get in the way of your posting or anything.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

Now, if you want to AUTOMATE configuration of your webserver, obviously IIS royally sucks compared to Apache. Actually, automation on IIS is largely identical to Apache. They both just use text files as their configuration storage. Now if the last time you worked with IIS was in version 5, which was ~5 years ago, you wouldnt have experienced this.

But IIS6 on Win2003 server has been XML config since day one.

Plus, you can use the COM interfaces and write your own script tools, or you can use one of the many command-line tools that ship with IIS to configure it at the command line.

Re:What?!

[gral]

COM Interop documentation sucks.

I'll have to look into the Command Line tools, this is the first I have heard of them.

Where exactly is the text file that Underlies the GUI? I thought it was the Registry.

The advertise these so well, I am sure I just missed it somewhere.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

You must be working on IIS4/NT4 for some reason, because this isnt how IIS5 or IIS6 works. Both _have_ an admin website, but its limited to localhost only and requires local admin login to work.

On IIS6 (the version thats been shipping for nearly 5 years) the admin site does not install by default.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

what makes you think that they can afford the Windows Server + IIS license? Windows Server 2003 +IIS is almost as expensive as a cheap server A couple things.

1. Windows costs money, IIS does not. There is no cost for IIS, never has been. It ships as part of the OS. You can buy the absolute cheapest version of Windows 2003 server and get IIS included.

2. You can get the Windows 2003 web server version for ~$400 from NewEgg. That includes everything you need, and requires no CALs ever.

I'm not sure what kind of servers you buy, but I dont think $400 would even buy a set of redundant power supplies, much less a whole cheap server. $2000-3000 at a minimum yes, $400 no.

Re:What?!

[ClosedSource]

Obviously if C# really was Java than it wouldn't matter which you use. Java fans hate C# because they know it isn't Java but does compete with it. Very few languages created in the last 25 years incorporate truly new ideas. Java's only unique feature was checked exceptions and C# didn't include it. To some that is a great liability, to others, a great improvement.

Re:What?!

[Allador]

Windows\System32\Inetsrv\metabase.xml

The advertise these so well, I am sure I just missed it somewhere. What advertising? Learn your tools. RTFM. This stuff is front and center in the docs for IIS.

You can get one central store of alot of the info from the IIS resource kit tools, and the IIS Support Center.

There's alot alot of relevant information in the IIS6 Technical Reference, available on the IIS support center linked above.

Re: What?!

[Dolda2000]

personally I have to say I quite like apaches configuration file format. It has an easy to follow struture that will be easy for anyone who is familiar with html to follow without the over-verboseness of xml.

In my mind, the problem with httpd.conv isn't the file format itself (although I do find it terribly ugly), but rather the actual contents. It is so large! Every time I install a new Apache web server (fortunately, I've only had to do it around five times in the last few years) it takes me hours to walk through all the options and try to get everything right, from hostnames and admin addresses to MIME type settings and extension modules. Of course, I never get it right on the first go either, leading to a number of problems until it has finally been tweaked correctly. Going through a Linux kernel configuration is a breeze in comparison.

Of course, Apache isn't alone in that. Similar programs include at least Squid, Dovecot and FreeRADIUS (some would probably mention sendmail, but I wouldn't, because the sendmail.mc format is very easy to deal with in my mind). It's great that they are very customizable, but when you have to read through thousand of lines of comments in the example config files just to get a basic idea what the setup is up to, I think something has gone wrong along the way.

Just as an aside -- On the other side of the spectrum lies programs like UW IMAP or the MIT Kerberos ftpd, which have no configuration files at all. They may be slightly configurable with simple command line arguments, but they are very much plug and play as long as they do what you want.

Re:What?!

[SimonInOz]

Well someone had better defend COBOL.

There's a fair chance that more business processing still happens on COBOL programs than any other language. (Any other single language? - I don't know). This was certainly true until recently.

It was a wonderful and innovative attempt to reduce the madness of assembly language to a Business Oriented language.

It was horrible to write. (ALL IN UPPER CASE - and with full stops. None of this semicolon nonsense)
It was immensely successful.
It was developed by a truly brilliant woman, the late Admiral Grace Hopper. We need more such women. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
It was amazing how you could overlay data structures on top of each other. So neat - back in the days when bytes were really, really precious.
And I confess I still like the formating used for description 999(X) etc (ok, maybe I don't still use it given that I've forgotton how it goes). So there.

Well that's all I can think of. Let the sledging begin!

Re:What?!

[petrus4]

He lists concrete reasons why he isn't using Apache; you respond with nothing other than emotive namecalling.

Fantastic open source advocacy, there...although truth be told, it's on about the same level it normally is.

And you wonder why people stick with Windows.

Re:What?!

[zig007]

How is that different from apache that needs chroot, .htaccess and various directory directives along with an application server configuration? Windows security is way more granular than *nix, it can be scary but IIS is not hard to modify security settings. People just need to understand the interactions between the different parts of the application, IIS ==> Worker process ==> Com/DCOM object ==> file system. Once you got those interactions down, modifying IIS security becomes a joke. No, it is not that different if you put it like that.
It is just that I think that the ISS implementation is counter-intuitive and, the more i think about it, quite strange.
And I have way more experience with IIS than Apache.

Once you got those interactions down, modifying IIS security becomes a joke. Except that getting them down can be a pain. "Access denied", "Insufficient rights", "Invalid context"..... What? Who? Where?

Whatever. In the end, it is a matter of preference, obviously.

Re:What?!

[siyavash]

"Also the only other reason I can imagine a windows machine to be running IIS in comparison to Linux with Apache is if you're a smaller company with only a few windows servers and cant really afford extra dedicated server hardware."

wow, you are an ignorant moron.

Re:What?!

[SgtChaireBourne]

Also the only other reason I can imagine a windows machine to be running IIS in comparison to Linux with Apache is if you're a smaller company with only a few windows servers and cant really afford extra dedicated server hardware.

Hosting is only $7 to $15 per month for Apache with all bells and whistles, so even then there is no rationale to try to deal with maintaining a webserver inhouse.

Re:What?!

[oliverthered]

could you please point me to a tool to create/edit/delete symlinks that can be hosted on a different server. thanks.

Re:What?!

[codefungus]

Yeah, wasn't my call. This MS guy was appointed to his position by the boss. So everything was to be MS. Including the win2k that oracle ran on.

The important question is

[Kyusaku Natsume]

BSD is still dead?

Re:The important question is

[morgan_greywolf]

BSD is still dead?

No. Thanks to a few necromancers, BSD is now officially undead. Netcraft confirms it!

My server

[Anonymous Coward]

My apache server response is Microsoft IIS 7.0. So what?

// Artem S. Tashkinov

Sooo....

[yoprst]

Netcraft confirms it?

Re:Sooo....

[maino82]

Yes, but unfortunately I have yet to see where Netcraft confirms that Netcraft has confirmed it. So, take this with a grain of salt.

Re:Sooo....

[Cctoide]

Worldwide salt supply dwindling, Netcraft confirms it.

Re:Sooo....

[julesh]

No, not really. If you actually look at the figures, it seems particularly bad because there's a big drop in the number of apache users... but that's because google's in the process of migrating their datacentres from apache to an internally-developed server. Over the last 3 months, 4.4% of the servers Netcraft examine have switched from Apache to this new server. But it doesn't mean anything, because those 4.4% are operated by a single entity, so it was only one decision to move that made that difference. One decision to move away != apache dying.

Re:Sooo....

[makomk]

Ah - I was wondering why there was sudden drop in domains running Apache in May 2007. I'm guessing that was due to Blogger switching from Apache to Google's homebrew solution. (Hmmm... I wonder what AdSense for Domains pages run no?)

From the person above

[JeremyGNJ]

The person above asked if there's any compelling reason not to use apache.

I think the question to ask is if there's any compelling reason not to use IIS. I'm sure people will spew "because it's Microsoft and you dont want your website hacked", but that's not what I'm talking about. IIS has had some problems in the past, but these days it's pretty good.

The question is when an organization already has an investment in Windows, and local domains, management tools etc....is there any reason not to use IIS? Does apache provide anything above and beyond what IIS provides when it comes to general website hosting?

Re:From the person above

[mwilliamson]

Running PHP/MySQL/PERL/PostgreSQL on windows is a pain in the butt. There is no automatic update mechanism like you get with almost any linux distribution, integration is poor, and support is almost entirely for running PHP/MySQL/PERL/PostgreSQL is for Linux.

Re:From the person above

[JeremyGNJ]

That might be a valid point *IF* you're using php and mysql. I was just talking about Apache vs IIS. If you count entire platform: Apache/PHP/mySQL and compare it to IIS/ASP/SQL (SQL Express), is there any compelling reason to chose one or the other?

Re:From the person above

[shinma]

There is no integrated mod_rewrite solution on IIS.

That's enough of a dealbreaker for me.

Re:From the person above

[mwilliamson]

Please ignore bad grammar I stated from above, as I am still more substantial a dose of caffeine in need.

Re:From the person above

[moderatorrater]

depends on what you consider general website hosting, but mod_rewrite built-in and htaccess are pretty compelling for my usage.

Re:From the person above

[mwvdlee]

So you mean; is there any compelling reason to use Apache when all you are doing is serving static HTML files? I guess not.

Re:From the person above

[vtcodger]

***IIS has had some problems in the past, but these days it's pretty good. ***

All depends on what you think the error discovery/removal rates are. If you believe that IIS has a rather small number of serious defects and they have mostly been found and corrected, then there may be no reason not to use IIS. On the other hand, many products -- Windows for example -- appear to have a near infinite number of problems and no realistic hope of ever resolving them all. If IIS is one of those and if Apache has fewer serious defects, then choosing IIS over Apache may well be a bad idea.

Re:From the person above

[mwilliamson]

Yes, I'd say the proper choice would be to match the talent you have on your development team with the tools required to build the desired product. It wouldn't make sense to force a bunch of LAMP developers to switch to IIS/Windows/MSSQL just to become a "pure windows shop". It also would make no sense to force a team of IIS/ASP/DNET developers onto LAMP just to change OSes. At my place of work we have both, and neither is going to take over the other.

Re:From the person above

[moderatorrater]

If perl/php are your languages of choice, then that's pretty compelling, no?

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

That may be all find & dandy, but is it worth changing to? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Sound familiar?

Re:From the person above

[Fallingcow]

Add Ruby on Rails, Python, and Tomcat to that list.

The biggest reason to use Apache over IIS is that Apache runs best on *nix systems... and so does most of the rest of the best web-oriented server and dev software.

Plus, there are so many great command-line tools (or GUI tools that have a command line mode with a simple switch) which can be (carefully) integrated into web apps that simply aren't available (or don't work as well) on Windows, and open up all kinds of interesting possibilities. Windows doesn't come close.

Re:From the person above

[everphilski]

yoda? but I thought you were at one with the Force...

waitaminute...

/. is the Force?!?

Re:From the person above

[hardburn]

Spillover effects of desktop monoculture. Any virus that can infect a Windows desktop can theoretically infect a Windows server, too.

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

who cares about integrated when open source can help

http://urlrewriter.net/
IIS
FOSS

Re:From the person above

[cerberusss]

There is no integrated mod_rewrite solution on IIS.

On the one hand, mod_rewrite has made many of my customers happy. On the other hand, mod_rewrite has caused my hair to fall out, has costed two keyboards (flung to the wall), and countless spills of good coffee.

In short, I've come to regard it as the primary sign of the coming of the antichrist.

Re:From the person above

[dosius]

I used to make quickie CGI apps in QuickBasic 4.5 and run them off a Windows-based server. (Apache, of course! I wouldn't have it any other way.)

For me that was the easiest way to do CGI. Though now that I'm running Linux, I use C and ksh. (bash is too damn slow. anything cgi I write in bash I run in pdksh.)

-uso.

Re:From the person above

[LWATCDR]

1. You don't have to run Windows. You may pick and choose from a number of different OSs including Windows.
2. Lower cost. You may choose the lowest cost platform for deployment. If for you that is Windows you can use Windows.
3. Better security options. You may run Apache on secure Linux which does have a higher government security rating then is available for Windows. Or you could run on OpenBSD which does have a very good security history.
4. No vendor lock in. IIS is single source as is the OS it runs on. Apache is available from multiple vendors, runs on multiple operating systems, and on multiple CPU architectures. You can run Apache on everything from an iPhone to an IBM Z series mainframe.
5. Better integration with PHP, Perl, Python, and MySQL.
6. Larger software selection. Most CMSs and other Web frameworks seem to be Apache centric.
7. Tomcat and JBoss.
8. No licensing worries. No need to do accounting on your Apache Licenses. Just one less thing to worry about if you get audited.
9. ASP is available for Apache if you really want it.

So it comes down to what gives you the best flexibility and value. If you are just going to throw up an intranet for your office and you only know Microsoft products then yes IIS may be fine for you. If you ever plan on scaling it to a large user base or may want to use a CMS like Drupal or Moodle. Or plan on using industry standard tools like PHP, Perl, Python, MySQL, or Ruby on Rails, then you should probably invest the time in learning both Apache and Linux. Before anyone questions how big if a standard in the industry PHP, Python, Perl and MySQL are all I can say is that they are used by sites like Yahoo, Google, and Slashdot. I think MySpace is an all Microsoft site.

Re:From the person above

[plague3106]

If Perl/Php are your languages of choice, you must be a sadist.

Re:From the person above

[shinma]

I care about integration. A third-party solution doesn't do me any good if my client's server doesn't support the third-party module for such a basic concept. By the by, if FOSS is important to you, that's a strike AGAINST IIS, rather than for it.

Re:From the person above

[fm6]

In other words, mod_rewrite is pretty average software.

Re:From the person above

[jedidiah]

mssql is going to get you into Oracle style "enterprise licensing" sooner or later. Do you really want to get sucked into that?

Microsoft isn't as cheap as you think it is.

Re:From the person above

[man_of_mr_e]

I know it's all trendy to hate Microsoft and all, but honestly, have you looked at IIS lately? Especially IIS7?

IIS has had less than half a dozen security flaws *IN 4 YEARS*, compared to Apache which has had tons. .NET has had about the same, compared to PHP which has also (and continues to have) tons of security flaws. Hell, one of the biggest names in PHP quit recently in protest over the poor security of PHP.

The fact of the matter is, IIS and .NET are very attractive, powerful, secure, and easy to use technologies. Whatever microsofts faults on the desktop, they are not present in .NET and IIS.

Re:From the person above

[WizMaster]

Don't you mean "masochist"?

Re:From the person above

[mhar]

I agree that there are many poor asp/vbscript programmers out there, but this is more a result of the language being easy to learn than being a bad platform. The quicker the learning curve on a language the more people there will be who overestimate (or overstate) their skillset, and vbscript is easy to learn on a fundamental level. Javascript has a similar problem - it is easy to learn the basics, but many people who claim to be "javascript" developers miss the majority of the elegance and power found in advanced javascript development.

I do a large amount of ASP/VBScript programming due to the need to support legacy applications, and despite its flaws it can be an acceptable platform for enterprise level applications when used properly.

Re:From the person above

[Blakey Rat]

Stupid question:

Isn't the "mod" in the name "mod_rewrite" an indicator that it isn't, in fact, integrated with Apache? I seem to recall it being an optional install, last time I was playing with it. (Which, given, was ages ago.)

Re:From the person above

[--daz--]

1. It runs on any OS
I don't care, nor do most of the people out there running servers. We run Windows, so that's not really an argument.

2. Apache Modules here. There is quite a list.
So what? I wouldn't use 99% of 'em, and the ones I would use would be to achieve current-feature-set in IIS7. And even then, I'd have less features than IIS7.

3. Easy to mass-install, easy to backup configuration, easy to clone configuration, etc.
True, but the first install is a major B*TCH. Yes, I'm proficient with Apache, I've set up dozens (yeah, I know I'm still a n00b by 'dot standards). But, c'mon, Apache is a b*tch to install by any standards.

4. Just as easy to upgrade as IIS.

Oh really? Ok, here's a common scenario I have to deal with: Setup an Apache server with Python and SVN extensions with SSL to run on Windows. Turns out that you have to compile Apache because it doesn't come binary form from Apache with SSL support (for various stupid reasons which I don't care about).

It is *NOT* easy to compile, install, and upgrade? It doesn't exist. Upgrade = new compile and install and copy over whatever settings are compatible and deal with the incompatible settings. Hours and hours of research, trial and error, etc.

So, c'mon, you guys need to stop being so disingenuous. Apache is a really great web server, no arguments, but it's hard to justify it over IIS all things being equal. Unfortunately, I still have to use it because I'm forced to use it due to the narrow-minded technology decisions of the some of the tool-makers I use.

Re:From the person above

[Matt Perry]

I know it's all trendy to hate Microsoft and all, but honestly, have you looked at IIS lately? Especially IIS7?

I hadn't heard of IIS7 so I tried to find a download. From what I can tell you can't download it by itself as it comes bundled with an entire operating system. Do you know where I can download a copy that runs on Windows 2000 or XP?

Re:From the person above

[Bellum Aeternus]

You can do the same type of thing mid-request stream with .Net and there are a number of ISAPI filters that do similar things (ISAPI_REWRITE comes to mind) if you don't want to use .Net. Finally, it's easy enough to code your own ISAPI filter to do the job just fine. In fact, if you're not a half bad coder you can develop something lighter than mod_rewrite because it does just what you need and no more.

Lastly, what I find almost funny is that most LAMP devs assume because a site is hosted on IIS that MSSQL is the backend. I've worked on a lot of IIS/.Net sites and about half are MSSQL and other half are MySQL. Each has its advantages and a smart development house will decide based on what it needs its RDBMS to do - not based on some software ethics.

Re:From the person above

[cyphercell]

Seriously, your sig makes me want to sign up to MSDN or some other Microsoft based website and whine about all M$ products while bitching about the futility of arguing with zealots. Kripes man you are a real dumb ass you know it? This is news site that is highly oriented around FOSS, tell us why you think other stuff is better, but don't resort to calling people pathetic because you disagree with them. You really might as well go to McDonald's and scream at everyone for not eating Burger King, it's completely insane and speaks volumes about your ability to think rationally.

Re:From the person above

[shinma]

Well, I'd definitely prefer not to use .Net, that's for sure. ;P

The IIS servers I've worked with have been using MySQL and, admittedly, have been very limited in terms of configuration, but if the baseline configuration is as much less usable than even the most limited LAMP configurations I've worked on, I still have issues with IIS relating to the capabilities of the "standard" platform I can expect to run into.

And honestly, a lot of those have to do with the limits and inconvenience of running on a Windows-based server vs. any flavor of *nix. (available command-line tools, etc.)

Re:From the person above

[shinma]

mod = module, and yes, it is technically an "optional" component, but it is so ubiquitous at this stage as to be considered standard. I have yet to run across a decently sized webhosting company that doesn't have it on their Apache install, and every (admittedly only two, so not exactly a definitive sample pool) IIS server I've been on has had no equivalent third-party plug-in installed.

Both web hosts also transferred my client's domains to LAMP (or MAMP, in one case) servers when I inquired about how often they patched their IIS servers with security updates.

Re:From the person above

[QuoteMstr]

When I use mod_rewrite, I always make sure to turn on maximum logging for the first couple minutes so I can make sure my configuration is sane. With that logging on, I haven't found a mod_rewrite problem I couldn't figure out in a few minutes: the logging tells you every step the thing takes, and it's pretty easy to figure out what rule is problematic.

That said, the configuration file syntax for mod_rewrite sucks. But that's life. Personally, I prefer just letting a single base script parse PATH_INFO on its own rather instead of going through mod_rewrite. Then again, I like Tapestry, so take my opinions with a grain of salt. :-)

Re:From the person above

[QuoteMstr]

Please, man, realize that plenty of people use languages other than PHP and database engines other than MySQL. I suspect a lower fraction of people use PHP on Apache than use ASP.NET with IIS. I wish I had numbers to back this up though.

Re:From the person above

[Bert64]

You can always turn mod_rewrite off, thus you have no hassle trying to deal with it...
The fact you had hassles with it, shows you were actually trying to use it for something. You'd have had even more hassle if you tried doing the same thing with IIS.

Re:From the person above

[QuoteMstr]

That depends on whether he has co-workers.

Re:From the person above

[Bert64]

You don't like being forced to use Apache, and yet you advocate using IIS which by extension forces you to use windows? What happens in the future if something makes you to switch os, you'l have to rewrite al the iis dependent parts of your sites. Similarly, if you want to switch OS the depence on iis, and thus cost of migration away from it may outweigh the perceived benefits of the switch and hold you back.

I've never had issues installing apache, the default install on virtually any unix is functional for a single site, and adding virtually hosted sites is easy enough. Some distros come with gui based tools for doing it too (cobalt linux etc).

Apache on any OS with a decent package manager and package repository is easy to update, this includes virtually all linux distributions.

As for narrow minded technology decisions, does this not also apply to iis that only runs on one os etc?

Re:From the person above

[Bert64]

No, nor should you use iis...
You use something smaller and more lightweight if all your doing is static files. A less complex server means less redundant code running, and thus better performance. Also less code means less chance of there being a security flaw in one of the pieces.

Re:From the person above

[everphilski]

dude, you forgot to hit 'AC'.

Seriously, your sig makes me want to sign up to MSDN or some other Microsoft based website and whine about all M$ products while bitching about the futility of arguing with zealots.

omg, me too! Should we get our nails done and talk about girls too? (In all seriousness ... the technical talk on forums.msdn.com is pretty good, a lot of compotent folk. Go browse it, you don't need a subscription. But its not a fair comparison, because it is a techical Q&A forum and this is a broader forum.)

Kripes man you are a real dumb ass you know it?

no I'm not a dumb ass. I just miss the old slashdot where half the people gave a shit and actually knew what they were talking about, instead of people talking out of their asses and buying into the hivemind philosophy present here.

I'm no zealot for anyone. I use Windows, I use linux. They each have their use. I do CFD work on my linux box, I do Excel, time management and a lot of my 'tool programming' on Windows for the wider audience/distribution. I do hate Mac though. If you want to go Unix(-y), use Linux or the gridiron. And while I'm no fan of the FSF, I do like Open Source. There is a difference, you know.

Re:From the person above

[drew]

Actually, I'd say if an organization already has a significant investment in Windows infrastructure (I'll refrain for the moment on passing judgment on that qualifier) I would say that Apache is a significant disadvantage. The only reason that I can see to choose Apache over IIS on a Windows server would be if you had already decided that you wanted to use PHP as your server side language (why anyone would do such a thing is beyond me, but I have seen it done) because PHP on IIS is either horribly slow or horribly unstable depending on whether you set it up as a cgi or an ISAPI filter.

ASP.NET is a decent programming environment, as web languages go anyway. I'm still impressed at how thoroughly Microsoft screwed it up, because you can tell that they started out with a lot of good ideas. But even if you immediately through out all of the crap they've stuffed in there, you're still left with a solid language, a decent template system, and a fairly comprehensive class library to build your own framework, which is still on par with or ahead of most other web languages.

If you don't have a significant investment into Windows in your server room already, I'd probably choose Apache over IIS just to avoid building a dependence on Windows servers, but I have no idea what server side language I'd use these days.

Re:From the person above

[man_of_mr_e]

Well, you can read a great deal about it at http://www.iis.net/

You can also download a free evaluation good until April 2008 of Windows Server 2008 Beta 3 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/beta/ lhs/default.mspx

Re:From the person above

[mopower70]

Not to completely derail your thread, but at the cusp of the last dot-com explosion, I worked providing infrastructure for a number of startups and got to see the hilarious results of just this sort of thing taking place. The CTO of this particular startup decided that THEY MUST BECOME A WINDOWS SHOP. Never mind the fact he had a staff full of Solaris developers who'd never programmed Windows in their lives. Firing up their system was a joy to behold. You'd power on the system, it would auto-login to the network and then run a single batch script - which proceeded to run literally hundreds of command shells, all running instances of their directly-ported Solaris counterpart. They would then all minimize themselves so you had a screen filled two-thirds of the way with mimimized CMD windows. Troubleshooting was a matter of rebooting and seeing if it happened again.

Needless to say, that company didn't go anywhere.

Re:From the person above

[Matt Perry]

I'm not interested, and don't want, Windows Server 2008. I'm only interested in II7. So my question remains, where do I download II7 for Windows XP and 2000?

Re:From the person above

[cerberusss]

*laughs* +1 funny in my opinion.

Re:From the person above

[cyphercell]

I just miss the old slashdot where half the people gave a shit and actually knew what they were talking about, instead of people talking out of their asses and buying into the hivemind philosophy present here.

I don't think this is the slashdot you think it is, maybe you're a little wiser now, or more caught up in the BS than you used to be, but I don't really see how /. ever could have been much different.

I don't see how your sig adds anything to the more serious side of slash. You do realize that you are feeding the trolls, that you claim have ruined slashdot, it doesn't make sense. We all have to participate in rational thought, for a rational forum, you are not exempt.

Re:From the person above

[cerberusss]

I agree on all points -- the logging is indispensible. I haven't tried the single base script approach though; I take it you code your apps in a way that results in a very clean URL? I have left the Java world somewhat but remember struts with the single application URL... About Tapestry, a friend of mine really digs Tapestry as well; he's a slashdotter as well.

Re:From the person above

[everphilski]

The trolls have always existed. Live and let live. I'm talking about the average joe. Back in '99 or so, this was a much more enlightening place than it was today? Did I grow up? Yeah. But in the same timeframe, we all grew up. And yet aspects of this place seem dumber for the experience. The same people who bash MS or Bitkeeper or ... for vendor lock-in love themselves some Apple iWhatevers. The same people who rant about free speech and the eroding freedoms in this country, percieved or otherwise, can't get enough Google Betas. Hypocrisy is amazing.

Re:From the person above

[fishbowl]

>I think the question to ask is if there's any compelling reason not to use IIS.

Server license would dwarf the remainder of our budget?

Re:From the person above

[man_of_mr_e]

You've never been able to download a new version of IIS for any version of Windows, what's more IIS7 relies heavily on Longhorn features that just aren't present in earlier versions.

Of course you knew this already, I'm sure... and you just wanted to be disingenuous.

Re:From the person above

[Kalriath]

Whatever. Nice FUD.

They've had 15 years or something like that to get you into "Enterprise Licensing" like Oracle. It hasn't even been rumoured to happen.

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

dug yourself into a hole there, didnt you. stupid fuckin fanboy

Re:From the person above

[Raideen]

Reasons not to use IIS: * You don't already have a Windows license * You don't have any code that requires IIS * You need functionality in Apache that doesn't exist in IIS * You already know Apache Reasons not to use Apache: * You already have a Windows license * You have code that requires IIS * You need functionality in IIS that doesn't exist in Apache + other application stack * You already know IIS * The one time that you tried to edit a config file, you got trapped in VIM, deleted a bunch of lines, duplicated others, and kept entering and exiting recording mode Reasons to host your own web site: * You need to install options that aren't available through shared hosting and the security/cost balance of dedicated hosting tips in favor of cost * You need to have more control over your up time and have the resources to keep it secure Reasons not to host your own web site: * You don't want to waste space by having a low load web server * You don't want to waste power by having a low load web server * You don't want to share a production system with a web server * You don't know how to maintain availability of a high load web server * You don't keep up to date with security trends and vulnerabilities * You don't check your logs and perform regular audits for security breaches * You don't know how to react to an attack * You don't know how to detect an intrusion * You don't know how to recover from an intrusion Having an investment in a Windows infrastructure has little to do with your choice of web server. There are other factors that may rely upon that Windows infrastructure but I think that I already covered those. Your argument is for general web site hosting anyway. Most companies don't have the resources or expertise to properly maintain a web server. If you're going to neglect your web server, just pay the $20/mo (or less including domain name registration) for hosting and be done with it. That's only a $1200 investment over the course of 5 years. It's probably cheaper than recovering from a single security hit. Let someone else worry about that stuff.

Re:From the person above

[Raideen]

Reasons not to use IIS:
* You don't already have a Windows license
* You don't have any code that requires IIS
* You need functionality in Apache that doesn't exist in IIS
* You already know Apache

Reasons not to use Apache:
* You already have a Windows license
* You have code that requires IIS
* You need functionality in IIS that doesn't exist in Apache + other application stack
* You already know IIS
* The one time that you tried to edit a config file, you got trapped in VIM, deleted a bunch of lines, duplicated others, and kept entering and exiting recording mode

Reasons to host your own web site:
* You need to install options that aren't available through shared hosting and the security/cost balance of dedicated hosting tips in favor of cost
* You need to have more control over your up time and have the resources to keep it secure

Reasons not to host your own web site:
* You don't want to waste space by having a low load web server
* You don't want to waste power by having a low load web server
* You don't want to share a production system with a web server
* You don't know how to maintain availability of a high load web server
* You don't keep up to date with security trends and vulnerabilities
* You don't check your logs and perform regular audits for security breaches
* You don't know how to react to an attack
* You don't know how to detect an intrusion
* You don't know how to recover from an intrusion

Having an investment in a Windows infrastructure has little to do with your choice of web server. There are other factors that may rely upon that Windows infrastructure but I think that I already covered those. Your argument is for general web site hosting anyway. Most companies don't have the resources or expertise to properly maintain a web server. If you're going to neglect your web server, just pay the $20/mo (or less including domain name registration) for hosting and be done with it. That's only a $1200 investment over the course of 5 years. It's probably cheaper than recovering from a single security hit. Let someone else worry about that stuff.

Oh yeah... reasons to use the preview button:
* To avoid posting a giant paragraph when you meant to use plain old text (sorry about the double submission)

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the question to ask is if there's any compelling reason not to use IIS.

Is there anyone, anywhere, who hasn't sooner or later been screwed over for having used Microsoft software?

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

It hasn't even been rumoured to happen

Yes it has. Right there in the very post to which you replied.

Re:From the person above

[spongman]

There isn't one built into IIS 6.0, but then again mod_rewrite isn't built into Apache, either.

There are plenty of 3rd party add-ins available (for example, I've had great success with http://www.isapirewrite.com/). IIS 7.0 has rewrite built in.

Re:From the person above

[makomk]

It's not just a question of that, it's a question of what languages the existing software is in. For example, the most widely-used forums and blogging software for ASP.net (and the one that Microsoft itself uses) is Community Server, and it sucks in many interesting ways.

Re:From the person above

[makomk]

mod_rewrite may not be built into Apache, but it's part of the standard Apache distribution and generally installed and loaded by default. (Apache is highly modular - a lot of stuff is either built as loadable modules or can be.)

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

these days it's pretty good

You hit the nail right on the head -- that's exactly why you shouldn't use IIS. You know that if it takes over as the majority web server then it WON'T be pretty good anymore because the competition won't be there nagging at IIS to get better!

Re:From the person above

[Anonymous Coward]

1) You don't care, fine, but many people do. It's a general concern, even if it's not yours.

2) so what?? That's a feature list. To disregard it because you would never need 99% of them is retarded.

3) apt-get upgrade apache2
Holy shit was that hard!!

Re:From the person above

[Matt Perry]

You've never been able to download a new version of IIS for any version of Windows, what's more IIS7 relies heavily on Longhorn features that just aren't present in earlier versions.

Of course you knew this already, I'm sure... and you just wanted to be disingenuous.

I didn't know that and I'm not being disingenuous. Please assume good faith. I'm not very experienced with MS's web technologies and had not even heard of IIS7 until this article was posted. Most of my experience is using Linux in a server capacity and writing PHP, Perl, and Java code. I'm seeing a shift in the demand for web services at work, particularly now that my company is rolling out SharePoint 2007. I'm struggling to gain focus on the MS web technologies and how they all fit together. Up until this point I've used Apache on my linux server and Resin on my windows machines. I'd like to work with whatever tools MS has just to make my life easy. I can download IE7 for Windows XP. Is it so unusual that I might expect that the web server of the same version might also be available for XP?

If IIS7 is only available on Vista then this seems like MS is shooting themselves in the foot. I have a Windows 2000 Pro and Windows XP Pro development environment. I'm unwilling to upgrade my operating system just to run a service that listens on port 80. For the standpoint of a potential customer, there a huge cost in planning and executing the upgrade, including the reinstallation and reconfiguration of all of the software that's currently installed on those systems. There is also a cost in retraining support staff to learn the differences and quirks of administrating a new OS. That's a heavy price to pay if one needs or wants the features that IIS7 offers.

Re:From the person above

[man_of_mr_e]

My appologies.

You can always download the free server trial, which is good for a year. You could run it in a virtual machine on any OS you like.

For good or bad, IIS is tied pretty heavily to the version of the OS it ships on. That helps them secure it more effectively. There's a reason IIS 6 has only had 3 vulnerabiliies in 4 years, and none of them critical or remote. It uses a lot of security features, and they're just not present on earlier versions. IE7 was initially only going to be available on Vista as well, but Microsoft was able to make it work on XP minus a boatload of security features (for example, no protected mode). If they were to do the same with IIS, it would make it impossible to secure to the same level, and when dealing with an internet facing service, that's just not acceptable.

We're talking Longhorn server here (ie Windows Server 2008), not Vista. It's a significantly different OS.

It's the standards that matters

[walt-sjc]

As long as the site is designed to support open standards and work cross browser, does it really matter what is running on the server side?

My take is that this is just more indication that MS's FUD campaign about patents is working.

That said, I have about a hundred servers, most running Linux, supporting a large complex web site. I see no reason to change to a MS based site, and due to the technology used, it would take a MASSIVE effort to port anyway.

Re:It's the standards that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

It matters to FOSS geeks.

Lacking mainstream social acceptance, something they caught a fleeting taste of during the dot com era, their surrogate has become software. They desperately hope to see FOSS software adopted by the mainstream. At that point they believe the phrase "I've been running LAMP at home since 1997" will garner them some respect outside LUG meetings and Linux support forums.

The expectation is that in return for their helping the world to cast off its Microsoftian chains society will overlook their inability to function in normal social situations.

Re:It's the standards that matters

[Vexorian]

I'll have to state the obvious... ...competition is good, even for you die hard windows fan, competition means MS will improve their things, and thus you'll be happier with better quality products. So, you might look at it like a geek stuff or you might notice that it is an attempt to break a frozen market that is harmful to everyone.

Not a surprise

[El Lobo]

Actually this is not a surprise seeing the stability, security and performance of the last versions of IIS. I am one of them who has migrated from Apache to IIS7 and I'm not looking back.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

You will when you need to do something beyond hosting a cookie cutter site.

Re:Not a surprise

[Macthorpe]

eBay is a cookie cutter site?

Re:Not a surprise

[backwardMechanic]

Okay, so why did you switch? Presumably you already had an Apache server up, running and stable? Having already learnt to use one, you must have had a compelling reason to change to the other. What did IIS give you that Apache didn't?

Re:Not a surprise

[Spy der Mann]

I think it might have to do with apps developed with SQL server. As a mySQL user, I'm dissatisfied with its transaction handling (InnoDB is known for being slow as molasses when dealing with bulk inserts, for example). Another example of IIS is enterprises using huge SQL Server datawarehouses and having the webserver as only a frontend. It's logical to assume that SQL Server developers have more experience with IIS + dotnet than with Apache+PHP. And don't forget the built-in MS Office interoperability.

So I think your "more than cookie cutter sites" argument doesn't hold. Actually, it's the opposite: Cookie cutter sites are more easily delivered with shared LAMP hosting.

In any case, it's more probable that the reason for the IIS usage increase has more to do with corporate, rather than technical reasons.

Re:Not a surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard to say if ebay is really using IIS, Apache, or both.

telnet www.ebay.com 80
Trying 66.135.214.176...
Connected to hp-core.ebay.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:50:28 GMT
Server: Apache-Coyote/1.1
Location: http://pages.ebay.com/messages/page_not_responding .html?eBayErrorEventName=p4kjkbsdab%60jtb9%3Ftd.s5 os57%3F-2007.08.06.08.50.28.621.MST
Content-Length: 0

Connection closed by foreign host.

Re:Not a surprise

[DataBroker]

seeing the stability, security and performance

I've run both, and still do, for a large financial institution. Your comment about seeing stability, security and performance does not hold up though. We regularly (weekly or biweekly) have to reboot the windows boxes for all of the typical windows updates, as well as to just "clean them up" and clean out memory problems from all of the applications that have to run on them.

So, how stable is a webserver where the underlying, obligatory OS requires regular reboots? Just how stable may one say their webserver is if it has to be rebooted?

Re:Not a surprise

[Macthorpe]

Looks like both to me. It still proves my point - IIS is not just for plain HTML webpages.

Home computers.

[moshennik]

I am sure the growth of IIS is due to people running IIS on their home computers. They come with Windows/IIS and most of them don't even know that apache is a choice. I can't really understand the reason behind the Apache decline.

Re:Home computers.

[MSFanBoi2]

Since it's not installed out of the box on XP, Win2k3 or Vista, its then someone installing it because they want to.

Someone installing IIS on their home computer is more than likely aware of Apache and didn't install it for whatever reason.

Maybe the decline in Apache is due to the leaps IIS has taken in both reliablity (4 of the top 10 hosts with the best reliablity are running W2k3), supportability, expandiblity and security. Not to mention OOTB it can do a lot more than Apache does OOTB.

Re:Home computers.

[cerelib]

Since most home computers do not have a registered domain name, I do not think home computers fall within the limits of this study.

Re:Home computers.

[realthing02]

The built in IIS server comes disabled. And do you really think that thousands of home users are going into their admin consoles and setting up IIS and have no idea of what apache is?

They probably don't even know waht notepad is because word is so prevalent, right?

On an aside, i don't think MS really cares what netcraft says, as netcraft can't see the thousands of intranet sites running IIS, the bulk of Microsoft services run behind firewalls.

Re:Home computers.

[LordEd]

Windows XP (not pro) does not include IIS. I can't say for sure about vista, but I doubt the home editions include it either.

Re:Home computers.

[random0xff]

Well, then you should have a look over at the official IIS website amd see some of the improvements for IIS 7. Version 6 added more stability and allowed applications to be pooled, IIS 7 will allow full control over web server settings using the (formerly ASP.NET exclusive) web.config file. Also, Microsoft has been working on a new Fast CGI implementation which means that (for instance) PHP or Ruby will run under good conditions on IIS. Then there's ASP.NEt which has matured to a stable webplatform with good performance, big community, some good open source components, and support for multiple languages (including Python and Ruby in the near future) and a free IDE (Visual Web Developer Express). Last but not least, IIS in Vista has completely new administration screens, which makes it easier to configure.

I hear the security track record for IIS 6 is also pretty good.

So all together, I think IIS is good value, not just for professionals, but also for students and hobbyists.

Re:Home computers.

[physicsnick]

I see a lot of people here replying that these users don't exist. I'd like to point out that I used to be one of them. I set up a webserver on my Windows 98 box with a dyndns account using IIS when I was younger. I had no idea what Apache was at the time.

That said, I don't run a webserver anymore, and I highly doubt these people number in the millions. In fact I'm sure their numbers are entirely negligible.

Dupe?

[Anonymous Coward]

This not news again?

As the first post all ready told... micro$oft is buying the ranking doing deals with domain parkers. The headers from the pages served still come from apache servers

Apache is being challenged by lightHTTPd (not crappy IIS)

Actually, I think it is something else entirely...

[CodeShark]

Namely a little bit of boredom in the web world plus the difficulty of trying to find new and interesting sites now that folks have figured out how to manipulate Google rankings.

Plus the fact that you can now run many more LAMP web sites per server than was previously possible. I mean, figure it out -- how many virtual sites can a person run on a modern fully configured Apache server than they could in say, 1999 before the dot com bubble burst. CPUs cores are something like 4-5x more powerful if not more, hard disk arrays bigger and faster, and the configuration setups probably ten times better. So it takes less Apache servers to run more sites, yes?

Easy?

[pedestrian crossing]

...and has an easy configuration GUI

Based on my experience with MS products, GUIs make really shitty configuration interfaces. You have to click all over the place to set things up, and there is no way to look at very many of the options at a time when they are spread across multiple tabs. Fine when you are following a "run sheet", but a total nightmare when you are trying to troubleshoot something.

Have you ever actually used the IIS or Exchange (or even Outlook) configuration GUI? <shudder>

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

Have you ever actually used the IIS or Exchange (or even Outlook) configuration GUI?

Yes, and to me it's easier to see/find stuff then when I have to scroll for miles through the config files on my apache servers. To each his own.

Re:Easy?

[pedestrian crossing]

to me it's easier to see/find stuff then when I have to scroll for miles through the config files on my apache servers

Not a very convincing argument.

First, text editors have this really nifty feature called "search". Takes you right to the string that you request.

Second, what if I want to see/verify all settings? What if I want to make sure that Server B is configured exactly the same as Server A? Much easier to scroll through (or diff) a config file than to click on every single frigging tab and subdialog, remembering which ones I have looked at and what they were set to.

Yes, to each his own, but anyone who has done anything beyond setting up a single web server once, curses the MS GUI configuration interfaces.

Re:Easy?

[quanticle]

Why are you scrolling. The entire point of storing configuration in a text file is that you can search (using your favorite text editor's find feature) for the exact option you need. With GUI's searching for a specific option isn't simple if you haven't written down the exact menu path that you went down last time.

Re:Easy?

[walt-sjc]

If you are "scrolling for miles through the config files" I would strongly suggest learning how to use your editor (the "Find" function), and how to use separated configuration files for apache.

Work smarter, not harder.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

Not a very convincing argument.

You are mistakenly thinking I am trying to convince you what to use. I don't care what you use. I was explaining what was easier to ME.

First, text editors have this really nifty feature called "search". Takes you right to the string that you request.

And if I'm not sure what the key work is I'm supposed to be searching for because I haven't touched the config file in a few months? The tabbed headings make it easier to find things for me in that case.

Second, what if I want to see/verify all settings? What if I want to make sure that Server B is configured exactly the same as Server A? Much easier to scroll through (or diff) a config file than to click on every single frigging tab and subdialog, remembering which ones I have looked at and what they were set to.

That's very true, and if for some reason I wanted to compare settings of several of my web servers that might be handy. I just never seem to need to do that.

Yes, to each his own, but anyone who has done anything beyond setting up a single web server once, curses the MS GUI configuration interfaces.

Patently and untrue and a troll. I've set up a good number of both Windows/Linux/BSD/MacOS web servers and I don't curse the MS GUI.

Re:Easy?

[plague3106]

Enough of that nonsense, unless you have a 10,000 line display, you don't see ALL the options on one screen editing a text file. Nevermind how easy it is to have an error by typo.

Yes, I've been using IIS for about eight years now and have always been able to easly find the options I need. I also now run exchange / outlook. 95% of the time I can find what I need without even consulting the documentation. Not true with Apache (or linux in general). That's one of the reasons I swtiched my servers to Windows; it was much easier to manange.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

As I said to the other poster. I tend to set up a webserver, and then not touch the config file for months. I have no need to sit and tweak their configs all the time. If it's been several months since I touched the config, I'm not always sure what key word it is I'm searching for.

Re:Easy?

[MightyMartian]

I agree wholeheartedly. I despise the GUI interfaces, with their inability to search for strings, the never-ending clicking to open lists further, particularly when trying to find more obscure settings. Of course, in reality, the Windows configuration GUI interfaces are so cruddy that half the items don't expand, and you have to right click to see the properties. It gets even worse when you have to delve into the registry. It's searchable, yes, but still awkward, the evil descendant of those old OS/2 INF files. There's nothing to replace a good old fashioned rc or conf file in my books.

Re:Easy?

[plague3106]

First, text editors have this really nifty feature called "search". Takes you right to the string that you request

Yea, becuase I remember exactly the tag for each individual option. Especially if I'm not quite sure what the option would be called.

Second, what if I want to see/verify all settings? What if I want to make sure that Server B is configured exactly the same as Server A? Much easier to scroll through (or diff) a config file than to click on every single frigging tab and subdialog, remembering which ones I have looked at and what they were set to.

Ahh, very simple. Export your configuration once you have your setup, and import the settings on the other computer. No need to even compare, you KNOW its identically setup now.

Yes, to each his own, but anyone who has done anything beyond setting up a single web server once, curses the MS GUI configuration interfaces.

Only if they don't know the tools they have readily available to them because they'd rather look at a text file then look around a GUI for a few seconds.

Re:Easy?

[Millenniumman]

I just can't understand how people could possibly think config files are easier than GUI setup. With a well done GUI, you
open it up,
go to the right section, and
select options from a list or check boxes.

With a CLI you :
open a terminal,
google for where the config file is,
cd to it,
google again when you realize you where looking at info for the wrong version, platform, etc.,
open the file,
google for where the option is located,
find it,
google a list of the options,
type in the one you want,
realize you don't have permissions for the file,
reopen it with sudo,
do edits over again,
restart the program you are configuring,
it doesn't really restart,
restart machine,
program didn't start,
fix typo,
restart,
the changes you made won't work together,
google alternative,
restart,
you needed to add something else to make changes work,
add it,
restart,
some weird error,
download GUI configuration utility

Re:Easy?

[MightyMartian]

Well, I guess you should be lucky you never have server config issues, and are such a configuration genius. I, on the other hand, do have to break into the configs with enough frequency that I find MS's GUI, and even interfaces like Webmin, to be incredibly difficult to work with. What's more, I find in particular with IIS that when I have to move configurations from one server to another, for it to be awkward and error-prone process.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

Where the hell did I claim to be a configuration genius Mr Troll? I explained that it worked fine for my in my situation. If someone else needs to do different things than I do they may well prefer Apache or Sun Server, or something else. Just because you have a lot of issues with your server, that doesn't mean everyone else is as well, or has to be a genius not to. If you prefer Apache for what you need to do than that's great, use it when you can. Others of us have had decent experiences with the MS GUI.

Re:Easy?

[jafiwam]

The GUI is not the only interface IIS has (at least 6 and later, 5 is a kludge at best, requiring a "registry editor" type app to modify).

Normally, one wouldn't edit them by hand, however, you can do all sorts of cool stuff with Perl and the XML files IIS6 uses for configuration. Back them up to move them (or just backup), run queries, etc.

Plus, there are VB hookups for command line changes if you want....

And, there is some sort of API to hook into it too. (Though I assume that is proprietary and hard to work with.)

Just because YOU think IIS is GUI only, doesn't mean it is.

I am sure there is a web page or GUI front end out there for Apache, does that make it GUI interface server software?

Yes, for certain tasks Apache is FAR better. However, not everybody is interested in those tasks, some just want to have a place to let the pointy hairs stick the "intranet" for their bathroom break policies or whatever.

Re:Easy?

[MightyMartian]

Unless you're not doing very damn much, no matter what server you use, you're going to have problems at some point. IIS has caused me more grief than Apache ever did, even if I find the learning curve for Apache to be somewhat greater than IIS. But the same applies to all MS products vs. their Open Source competitors. MySQL is a bit more complex to get up and running than SQL Server. Samba takes a bit more work than Windows networking to start file sharing. But goddamn, when you're screwing around with configuration parameters, being able to copy the configs to .bak, see that your experiment didn't work and moving the backups online with a couple of commands, and suddenly the incredible artifice that is MS's config GUI system begins to look like a three-legged mule with a pretty dress on.

Re:Easy?

[Niten]

Enough of that nonsense, unless you have a 10,000 line display, you don't see ALL the options on one screen editing a text file. Nevermind how easy it is to have an error by typo.

You exaggerate to the detriment of your case. My web server's entire configuration file is exactly 125 lines long – less than three screenfuls in my text editor. And with Apache, for example, you can check your configuration file's syntax without actually running the server with apachectl configtest.

On the contrary, I find that plain text configuration files make administration much simpler. If I want to copy parts of a configuration from one server to another, it's as easy as yanking a bit of text. Documenting my settings involves merely dumping the contents of my configuration file to my manual, rather than expounding on my navigations through a GUI menu system.

It seems that Microsoft itself has come to recognize the weaknesses of GUI configuration, as one of IIS 7's most notable new features is that it is configured using plain text configuration files.

Re:Easy?

[AaronBrethorst]

IIS 7.0 uses text file-based configuration.

Re:Easy?

[jedidiah]

If that describes how you interact with Apache, you shouldn't be allowed to touch IIS either.

Infact, revoking all Administrator rights on whatever boxes you have them on would also be a good idea.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

So what should I do here? Troll you back and say you must be a fucking moron if you are having all those configuration issues?

Well, are you?

As I said before, different people are going to have different configurations and different needs and experiences. I run a relatively small number of websites for nonprofits, edu's and small companies. That's very much side-work in my main job, I don't work on the web server all day, and neither do most folks out there. The content is a bit dynamic, with new products or events, blogs, new java applets etc, etc, but nothing changes constantly that requires constant tweaking of the apache or IIS configs. If that's 'not doing very damn much' by your standards, then neither do 90+% of the other websites out there. That's a typical setup. If I were constantly tweaking the configurations daily and doing very nonstandard things I'm sure I'd prefer apache too. I don't. I was relaying my experience, which probably reflects that of a good number of folks out there. Not looking for some idiot troll to say if you think the same way I do you must think you are a wild genius or do nothing 'real' with your websites.

Re:Easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop calling people with differing opinions Trolls. I've been reading through this thread and you keep doing it. They are not trolling so stop using the word and come up with decent counter arguments instead.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

If they only had a differing opinion they would not say I must think I'm some kind of genius. They would simply say they had a different experience. If they stop trolling, I'll stop calling them trolls.

Re:Easy?

[caluml]

vi /etc/apache2/httpd.conf
/DocumentRoot

And you're there. Also, imagine having to do some task on 50 webservers. Would you rather script it once, and feed in a list of IP addresses? Or VNC/Rdesktop in to each one, click, click, click, drag, click.

Re:Easy?

[Niten]

Granted, if you have absolutely no idea what you're doing then it'll probably be easier to click away at a GUI until you come up with a working (albeit possibly not correct, or possibly insecure) configuration, than to hack one out of a text file. But if you have no idea what you're doing, you shouldn't be setting up a public-facing Web site to begin with.

Text files make configuration much easier for the skilled administrator. No hunting through obscure menus needed; if you want to find out how to implement a feature, you just search the man page. Copying or backing up your configuration is no more convoluted than copying a file. Real administrators tend to demand text based configuration, hence IIS 7.

Re:Easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that Microsoft itself has come to recognize the weaknesses of GUI configuration, as one of IIS 7's most notable new features is that it is configured using plain text configuration files [iis.net].

It's not that they recognized the weaknesses of GUI configuration, but rather they realized many of their twinkies are filled with pussy. Case in point, you.

Re:Easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tolling is where a person makes an general inflammatory statement purely to get a reaction. Saying you thought you were some kind of genius isn't really a troll. Saying that "M$ Sucks so U must 2 n00b!" would have been. Chill out and ease off the over use of "troll".

I doubt that they even meant to be insulting, just didn't think before posting.

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

Sorry, saying someone thinks they are a genius simply because they stated they had a different experience/opinion IS inflammatory and a troll. I didn't begin the thread saying 'Apache is the suxors' as some of the respondents basically have about IIS. I didn't attack Apache or it's users (I'm one of them) in any way. I simply said what was easier for me for my use in my circumstance. Then I get accused of thinking I'm a genius who does 'nothing' with my servers. Those are unprovoked attacks, and trolls in my book.

Re:Easy?

[TheLink]

Text file configs are magnitudes easier when you have lots of servers (say hundreds) to configure and set up.

e.g. edit template.conf

cat base.conf template.conf | ./deploy.pl servers.txt

(like mailmerge but for webserver config files :) )

After all who wants to click on GUI screens for each of the 100 servers? Or hire a temporary team of 5 people to do 20 servers each?

But what if it's 1000 servers? No difference the CLI way. If it's 10000 or more servers, you'd probably split the servers.txt file to multiple pieces and run the deploy on more than one machine.

Heh but you'd probably still want to do it in phases otherwise you get to mess up > 10000 machines at a go ;).

If you have extra time and resources (haha) you could have someone make a GUI that helps you make those config files.

But whatever it is, stay away from that "registry" stuff which even Microsoft appears to be moving away from nowadays.

Sure, GUI is better for some stuff, but the popular desktop GUIs out there are appear to be designed _only_ for naive or ignorant people, and hardly have any features for augmenting the abilities of trained/experienced skilled people (they are either slow and laggy, or lack features - you might as well use cli or the screen program).

For an idea of how GUIs could augment the abilities of skilled people you'd have to look at UIs of some games - with decent UIs skilled human players can perform and sustain very many actions per second. They're probably not even near optimum, but they're an _example_ of why I think desktop GUIs have a long way to go. Microsoft Windows actually does do some stuff that I like - user can _easily_ customize the _classic_ start menu so you can easily launch stuff with keystrokes (just name files and folders in the start menu appropriately and winkey followed by the appropriate letter/number will launch/open it), can also put apps/shortcuts in the "Send To" folder.

Pity we haven't progressed very much since Douglas Engelbart's demo in 1968. And hardly anyone seems to notice the lack of actual progress. They just go wow over stupid and useless stuff like wobbly windows, "transparency" and that stupid show windows/apps sideways so you can select from them (sure doesn't work well if you have 100 windows running, how about we actually work on augmenting human ability again?).

Re:Easy?

[Lord of Hyphens]

In other words, you spent your time learning Windows-based server management as opposed to linux-based.

Re:Easy?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's just a light flame if anything.

Re:Easy?

[bogaboga]

What about Apache provisioning a GUI utility that actually creates those text files? I personally found Apache's configuration files quite cumbersome to understand...coming from a n00b's point of view.

But I am almost an expert now. IIS was not an option because I really wanted to understand Apache. I doubt everyone has that patience and I am not alone!

Re:Easy?

[bogaboga]

That's why the status quo involving Apache will result in Apache continuing to lose market share. Sadly, it will be too late before folks like you begin to provide what n00bs want. I was one of the some years ago and Apache's config files were problematic to me.

On the other hand, there is a configuration utlity for Apache on Windows, which is not bad at all. Can you say the availability of this utility is having negative results for Apache? Have a look.

http://www.apache-gui.com/apache-windows.html

Re:Easy?

[cyphercell]

honestly, you're describing a first attempt here right? I mean this is really poor use of the system.

Re:Easy?

[MightyMartian]

My experience comes from being the admin for a small ISP. Initially I loved IIS, because it was simple, and providing the sites stayed simple, it was fine. But as customers began asking for PHP, MySQL, JavaServer and the like, I began to discover the simple truth, that Microsoft doesn't want its servers to run well with anything other than its own extensions. I am hardly alone in these issues, and after a while, you begin asking yourself "Okay, it took me half the time to get these sites up and running, but now I'm spending twice as long trying to iron out the kinks, so has using IIS been worth the effort?"

Re:Easy?

[LurkerXXX]

Also, imagine having to do some task on 50 webservers. Would you rather script it once, and feed in a list of IP addresses? Or VNC/Rdesktop in to each one, click, click, click, drag, click.

Which would be a good reason to run Apache wherever possible. IF I ran 50 webservers. I don't. Just a handful and they are on a variety of platforms.

That's like why ask me why I don't user Oracle as a database because it is the ultimate database if you are trying to do ERP and every other job in one big system that can do anything you'd ever need out of a database in a big fortune 500 company. The answer is I don't work for a big fortune 500 company and don't need all those features. PostgreSQL and MSSQL fit all the needs I have nicely with a lower learning curve. Telling someone they should only run Apache is as silly as telling them they should all run Emacs or vi.

Different people have different needs. Once size does not fit all. If you prefer Apache, great! Use it. For some of us IIS can work as well or better to meet our needs. It's good that we have choices.

Re:Easy?

[Allador]

So if you dont like using the GUI on IIS, why dont you use the underlying XML file that the GUI is managing?

If you have to copy config from one IIS machine to another, there are simple and straightforward tools to do this.

How can you come on this board and bitch about something that you clearly arent up to speed on the tools? Learn the system, then you gain the right to bitch about it. But dont bitch out of ignorance.

Re:Easy?

[Allador]

It seems that Microsoft itself has come to recognize the weaknesses of GUI configuration, as one of IIS 7's most notable new features is that it is configured using plain text configuration files [iis.net]. This has been true for years. IIS6 on Win2003 server is based off an XML plain-text file too. It's been this way for almost 5 years.

Re:Easy?

[plague3106]

Nope, I actually do know Linux server management as well. Its more time consuming that Windows.

Re:Easy?

[MightyMartian]

By "text file" I don't mean XML, which is even worse to work with than the IIS GUI. XML may have its place, but in configuration files it's almost as bad as the Windows registry.

It means we've given up on security

[gelfling]

In lieu of closed applications compatibility and feature set. AKA glitzy web apps that run like shit and are security nightmares. Which is fine by me as long as I never have to hear some asshole complain about ID theft again.

Re:It means we've given up on security

[Anonymous Coward]

Given up on security?? Look.... I do infosec, including Vulnerability Management (basically, making sure patches are up-to-date) for a living - and I came thru Nimda and Code Red and the monthly IIS patch-test-deploy-crash cycle whilst our Apache boxes (which I was developing on, using Oracle and mod_perl -- vastly and obviously superior to ASP) kept on tickin'. A year or so later the only people still using IIS just hadn't heard of alternatives... virtually anyone who thought there WAS an alternative would use it, apart from those with an allergy to CLI or textfiles of course. So what changed in the last 3 - 4- 5 years?

Here's a free clue.

MITRE CVE records for IIS: (161 records found.)
MITRE CVE records for Apache: (272 records found.)

The unpalatable truth is that MS have spent a LOT of effort improving IIS security. Do you know how many remote root vulns have been found in IIS v6?

Slashbots... I swear...

BTW This comment comes from a Stinkpad running Mandriva 2007 via a lot of Linux-powered infrastructure. And yes I'd rather stick rusty nails in my eyes than use ASP.NET instead of Perl. However business users seem to find .NET, C#, VisualStudio et al to be more productive of better, quicker, more reliable and safer code than Apache. (Given the torrent of PHP bugs on Bugtraq in the last few years, I'm not surprised.) The great hope for me, and many others I suspect, was Perl 6 -- tragically Perl seems to be withering on the vine in the face of user apathy, absurdly long & over-ambitious dev cycle for Perl6 (where are we now, year 6?)

Personally I keep on using Perl, Apache etc because I prefer FREE software to CLOSED, PROPRIETARY software -- regardless of how good it is. Freedom trumps usability, for me at least. The rest of you can go ask ESR what went wrong with his wonderful plan for "Open Source" to take over the world....

Re:It means we've given up on security

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Giving up on security? You might want to check out IIS6's security record.

Apache security record since 2003
34 vulnerabilities, 3% serious, 9% unpatched, 3% partially patched

IIS6 security record since it was released in 2003
3 vunlerabilities, none serious, all patched

IIS5 had many security problems, but you need to deal with the present day. IIS6 has had a nearly flawless record since it was released in 2003. And IIS7 builds on that record and adds more modularity and much greater performance (the beta of IIS7 blows away IIS6 and Apache). Nowadays, the only thing Apache really has going for it is price and Microsoft-hatred (on the part an ever-shrinking segment of the IT community).

I'm going to sue Microsoft

[sjonke]

Once my Laser printer cancer is found I'm going to sue the pants off of Microsoft. Their web servers fuel the pages that get printed on the HP Laser printer perhaps only 8 feet from my desk, and the more web sites served by IIS, the more Microsoft sponsored laser printing particles end up inside me. I mean, it's bad enough to be killed by legitimately printed documentation for a project, but to be killed by articles from Vanity Fair is something all together different.

Re:I'm going to sue Microsoft

[mwilliamson]

Vanity Fair is such a third-rate piece of yellow journalism, I can't believe people waste their money on it. Its only legitimate use is for toilet paper which, by the way, greatly improves its content.

Re:I'm going to sue Microsoft

[vtcodger]

***Once my Laser printer cancer is found I'm going to sue the pants off of Microsoft.***

Best check the EULA that you clicked thorough without reading. Not only is Microsoft not liable, your estate will owe Microsoft a substantial annual payment for the software you would have purchased during the years that you failed to live because of your carelessness and lack of foresight in contracting cancer.

Uptime

[ciryon]

Apache has a vast majority of sites with longest uptime.

Re:Uptime

[gazbo]

Yup, it's true. And they all run BSD too. Look a bit further down the list and you'll see Windows battling it out with IRIX (plus a couple of Windows installs in the very high places).

Linux? Well...Linux doesn't fare too well.

Re:Uptime

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't show uptime for modern linux kernels (at least not for my webpage) - the results are skewed.

Re:Uptime

[ttldkns]

You'll notice that list is the list of highest uptime in days. Well because of various reasons netcraft doesnt count most linux boxes above 198 days. Read these 2 netcraft FAQ entries: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html#cycle2 50

Because of this linux isnt in that list.

Re:Uptime

[nasch]

How much of that is because some versions on some platforms only report 497 days uptime before resetting to zero?

Re:Uptime

[sponga]

4 of the top 10 hosts with the best reliablity are running W2k3

Re:Uptime

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but how reliable is Netcraft? Basically (as explained in their FAQ) they believe anything a server tells them, and try to deduce it from something else when the server doesn't tell them anything.

I know a site that's running a Oracle Web Services (I don't know if it's derived from Apache or something entirely written at Oracle or whatever), on Debian, where that statistic just keeps going up instead of dropping to zero each time it should. That would be DAILY (the server is taken down for database maintenance on each working day, and despite that, it still crashes a couple of times per week. I've known it to remain down for more than 24 hours after a crash - and when it came back up, Netcraft's uptime stat just continued from where it left off.

The site belongs to the Belgian government, stats here.
BTW, if you visit the URL as in the netcraft link you'll get just the opening page of an informational site, the server's main load comes from a webservice that requires a logon.

Also interesting to see that the first linux box comes in the 37th position, with both Windows 2000 and Server 2003 far ahead of it.
And actually, windows should be at number 4 instead of 6: numbers 1 and 2 are the same machine (identical stats and the names resolve to the same IP), and ditto for 3 and 5.

Re:Uptime

[Bert64]

It's also interesting to wonder how many security holes those windows boxes have, since most updates require a reboot.
Updates to most unixes can be performed without rebooting.

Also, linux resets its uptime to 0 after around 497 days (the uptime is stored as a 32bit integer in increments of 1/100 of a second i believe)... 64bit linuxes don't have this problem, but aside from a few alphas there probably arent many 64bit linux machines which have been around long enough to have entered the top uptime list yet.

Re:Uptime

[Bert64]

Their "reliability" metric is based on "percentage of time the host was reachable from netcraft's test servers"...
Thus, machines on a stable network that is hosted close to netcraft are far more likely to be higher in the rankings. Also, your servers could be horrendously unstable, but if you have enough of them behind a load balancing device they will still appear to be reliable from the outside. Also, netcraft only samples the sites periodically, any downtime between samplings wouldnt be noticed.

Re:Uptime

[Anonymous Coward]

Why then was one of my LAMP servers counting 1100 days last week?

Re:Uptime

[Anonymous Coward]

linux not so good, many reboots needed, yes, yes

Re:Uptime

[cciRRus]

Perhaps because a (regular?) Windows Update would require a reboot?

Re:Uptime

[Bert64]

I dont know, perhaps it runs a 64bit kernel?
Take a read of:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/19/73
That explains it better...

IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[ThinkFr33ly]

IIS already has a pretty dramatic marketshare lead when it comes to the Fortune 1000.

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[SerpentMage]

Not surprising because we are moving away from "hobbies" to "packages."

By hobbies I mean how many new dot coms are being created? How many people are creating new and nifty content? Some sure, but the vast majority of folks are companies that see the web as a necessity and not a money maker.

The innovative companies need flexibility, power and tunability, which is given by Apache, and the LAMP stack. The corporations that see the web as a necessity just want to put information onto the Internet. They don't care about "social networks." They just care that their catalog can be viewed. And that is the domain of Microsoft, not Apache.

I personally see these statistics as a maturation of the web, not that Apache is loosing market share.

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[ThinkFr33ly]

The innovative companies need flexibility, power and tunability, which is given by Apache, and the LAMP stack. The corporations that see the web as a necessity just want to put information onto the Internet. They don't care about "social networks." They just care that their catalog can be viewed. And that is the domain of Microsoft, not Apache. Huh? How is Apache any more flexible, powerful, or tunable than IIS?

Also, last I checked, some pretty big social networking sites use IIS.

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[dwpro]

Also, last I checked, some pretty big social networking sites use IIS. Gee, that bastion of uptime, speed, and programming talent they call Myspace? What other references does IIS need?

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[jt2377]

Gee, that bastion of uptime, speed, and programming talent they call Slashdot? What other references does Apache need?

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[Jugalator]

I personally see these statistics as a maturation of the web, not that Apache is loosing market share.

Yeah, one can look at it in two ways, but in reality both seem to be happening. ;)

Re:IIS Already Leads Where Microsoft Cares

[dwpro]

probably not more references, just less null pointer references :)

I was looking at netcraft...

[Gregb05]

And I was wondering... what the hell happened in March - April '06 that started the trend of Apache decreasing and IIS servers increasing?

.NET? SQL Server? Vista? Something changed in that time frame.

Re:I was looking at netcraft...

[wicka]

GoDaddy switched all their parked domains from Apache to IIS in March. But if you think about it, the parked domains were just inflating Apache's market share beforehand, and now it's just inflating IIS (to an extent, I think it looks like their market share is actually growing, just not as much as the numbers).

Re:I was looking at netcraft...

[benjymouse]

One explanation may be ASP.NET 2.0 which was released in nov. 2005. The 2.0 release was a major upgrade to ASP.NET and saw productivity improvements across the board. If you had project start at that time they would take a few months before finishing.

It is true that godaddy switched parked domains to IIS. Netcraft has noted so in their survey. But that doesn't explain the apparently sustained growth of IIS.

And an XP box with an IIS on it will not make it on the the Netcraft stats, unless it hosts a *site*. On top of that XP does not by default install IIS.

Note also that the same trend is visible when looking at the "active sites".

Re:I was looking at netcraft...

[tgatliff]

The M$ marketing plan kicked in?? Realistically I would assume that M$ would put some sort of plan in place to make it look like XP/Vista is just taking the market by storm. In fairness, this plan was probably put into place way before Vista even released.. This is only reasonable to expect. The only issue, though, is that I have not seen this information him mainstream news (ie. No Vista is taking the world over type news) so I would assume that their plan did not go completely as planned. It might also be that other bad news has discounted Vista/M$, though, or maybe the media is too pre-occupied with the subprime blowup. Either way, at this point, I do not see this information giving M$ any traction...

lower quality admins

[thedrunkensailor]

low quality server administrators dont choose to work on the command line, so IIS is a perfect half-ass fit for their needs. there is no reason not to use apache, and combine this with virtualized networks and windows runs too much overhead to be useful.

Re:lower quality admins

[butlerdi]

Well, in some cases there may be a reason. Last year I had a customer using SQL Server for a database project and they wished to use the REST functionality of executing stored procedures directly from a URI (Intranet Site). This was done very easily by publishing the required DB objects on IIS. Not sure a real easy way exists on Apache, if any. But I am no SQL Server guru either.

Re:Lower Quality Admins

[cardboardbunny]

I honestly believe that is due to the lack of adequate teaching at Universities these days. I can recall many times a professor or two griping about the lack of proper training in the University level with regards to system administration. However, there is only so much you can learn from a book, the rest comes from hardened experience.

Re:Lower Quality Admins

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over yourself. As you get better everyone else seems worse. Well done, you're not too old to learn shit. Someday some smart-arse kid will pull you up in front of you peers and this post will come back to haunt you. Ironically, even then it's nothing to do with standards getting better / worse, it's just that you've hit $TOO_OLD.

Re:Lower Quality Admins

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree. One aspect that's been scaring me lately is the amount of sysadmins not willing to RTFM. I mean, for software that's well documented, it seems a lot of people here still have problems initially configuring apache.

Usefull sites ?

[Joebert]

I want to know what percentage of the sites queried consist of anything more than Adsense landing pages & directories full of directories.

Sending a spider to one bad directory can give you 30,000 trash domains in very little time.

Re:Actually, I think it is something else entirely

[mwilliamson]

We have around 60 LAMP sites on one quad-processor box at my place of employment. (it's an .edu) These sites include our main public-facing website, the public-facing side of multiple campus organizations, and a myriad of in-house tools for local use. LAMP scales very nicely and migrates even easier. LAMP just isn't all wrapped up in that "one-application-per-server" ideology.

On my little-bitty VM from unixshell.com, I have about 8 name-based vhosts going. It's pretty amazing what you can do with such minimally virtualized hardware.

Re:Actually, I think it is something else entirely

[Dan Ost]

I believe that netcraft is counting sites, not servers. As such, consolidating servers would not explain netcraft's numbers.

The ASP Effect?

[INeededALogin]

In the last 5 years... I went to 2 Universities. One of them was a crappy, private University whose entire program focused on Microsoft. It was one of those afterwork, pay us a lot of money for a degree thing. I left that place and went to a State University(soon to be the largest in the state). I was shocked to find out from the CS majors that they had a large Microsoft Curriculum as well. Apparently, Microsoft gives a lot of money to the Universities to ensure that they are a central part the curriculum. Since a lot of students are learning about ASP, Visual Basic and .NET... is it any surprise that these same students are going into the workplace and using these tools instead of a perl, php, ruby, python inside of Apache.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[IBBoard]

I went to a British Uni. For generic programming we were taught in Java in the first year then two years of C#. For concurrent systems and algorithms and data structures the samples were in Java. Machine Learning had a leaning towards Java but used multiple languages. We had a specific bash/Perl/make file module in the first year. I also did a year as "Industrial Experience" in a pure C# place (internal development for the company) and the few bits I had to handle VB in old ASP forms were bad enough!

I think the reason given for moving us to C# is that more and more companies outside Uni were using it so it was going to be more relevant for most people. TBH I can see a lot of places where I prefer the C# methodology (e.g. events, delegates and a few other bits that are core in .Net but 'write yourself' in Java).

I'm now programming in Java at work and C# (in a cross-platform, compatible with Mono way) at home, along with PHP for my website, so it's not all MS amongst graduates.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[Puls4r]

I'm surprised you aren't modded higher, frankly. This is the primary reasons open source isn't doing well. People stay with what they are comfortable with. MS Office in high school => MS office in college => MS office in the workplace. Windows in high school => Windows in college => Windows in the workplace. Geeks are constantly in denial about these things because they are always working to make things better, faster, and more efficient. But "People", generally speaking, go with what's comfortable, easy, and common. Drop down menus, radio boxes, etc are "common". Command line? Editting Text files? Apache better get out of the whole in a hurry. The server market is no longer a market where you can afford to be different. It's a commodity market, they are a dime a dozen, and if I can click a radio box as opposed to editing a text file - guess which I'm going to do?

Re:The ASP Effect?

[HerculesMO]

The end result of universities is to turn out future employees for organizations. A lot of application level programming is done at the .NET level -- it is the job of a university to train you to be able to fill the next generation slots.

The other option taught at a lot of universities (when I went some years ago) is Java. And Java becomes increasingly slower and more painful to use, what other options are there? PHP is a good language but in a corporate environment... how often do you see it used to develop enterprise apps? .NET has the ability to be developed fast and dirty and work. Lots of tools in place to support it as well.

I'm not saying other languages are bad, but .NET has a great foothold in the corporate world. Take that away, and universities will likely teach other alternatives.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. And that buyout isn't exclusive to CS courses. I'm studying to become a civil engineer and in the university I go to, somehow MS got a hold in the curriculum and now civil and mechanical engineer students started being taught C# in the intro to programming course. I do not know who thought that the idea of doing numerical analysis in C# was a good one.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[CodeBuster]

is it any surprise that these same students are going into the workplace and using these tools instead of a perl, php, ruby, python inside of Apache.

Of course not, but Universities cannot pay the bills with good will and tuition alone. In fact, there is talk about raising the tuition prices for relatively more costly majors such as computer science and engineering as opposed to comparative literature. Now, would you rather that Microsoft technologies be featured (usually in the elective courses anyway) and the labs be full of windows PCs that are fine for CS lab assignments (at that level it doesn't really matter what they use...in my first year we were using Macs + CodeWarrior) with Microsoft kicking in some money to fund the budget OR would you rather make up the difference in your tuition payments so that apache, php, and the like can be featured in those electives with a lab full of Linux, Solaris, and maybe a couple of token Windows machines instead? If you don't want to use Windows then run Linux on your laptop. You still get your shell account access (probably) and you could probably do the lab assignments on your laptop as well (Java is still more prevalent in lower division CS than Visual Basic or C#, at least at non-trade school like serious Universities).

Re:The ASP Effect?

[sinthetek]

Universities get plenty of government grants and free labor as well as tuition (not to mention profits from bookstores some of which have very jacked-up costs). Also, don't forget the fact that probably half of that sum is going out the Window for MS licensing (albeit discounted). I wouldn't be surprised to find a college is paid over a million every year by MS to teach their curriculum and *still* end up owing them money. I've also noticed a big difference in how many businesses and colleges use/teach MS in east/west coast. I wonder how much of that is related to state funding...

Re:The ASP Effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

As another poster pointed out, Apache doesn't come with the GUI tools by default (you can get them though) but it's a hell of a lot easier to make your own in house tools for Apache than it is for IIS (is it even possible to create automated tools?).

During a mass migration of over 2,500 domains from a server I didn't have a shell account on I spent a whole 5 minutes creating a simple script then using bash looped through the list of all domains (the company at least kept track of those) and had all those domains moved in less than 30 minutes, I'd like to see that done on IIS.

Again referencing another poster, it's possible with 30 minutes worth of work to create a web front end that does all that with one simple form - again something I've done with quite some success, even novice PC users can fill out 4 input boxes for the relevant information.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[gunnk]

Good grief! That radio button is the PROBLEM not the SOLUTION. I *hate* dealing with IIS and 2003 because of the GUI. No, I don't mind being able to click buttons and boxes -- much easier -- but trying to look at your configuration when a problem arises means going through all those zillion menus, boxes and buttons looking for the one that was clicked by mistake. I'd much rather just read a text config file. MUCH quicker.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[diamondsw]

Offtopic, but we had the exact opposite problem where I went (Northwestern). The CS curriculum was completely theory-based, with no "real-world" aspects.

Now, I'll be the first to argue that any Computer Science department without a strong basis in theory and fundamentals doesn't deserve the name, but eventually you do really need to do some higher level work. Whether that means a "technology of the day", GUI design, Win32, what-have-you, you really need to apply that theoretical knowledge a bit more concretely and expansively than individual courses would. Something to tie it all together and prepare you for "real world" challenges, as it were.

While I was there, Microsoft certainly made a play for us - we all got free copies of Visual Studio, BackOffice, NT 4, and Windows 2000 beta copies. And that was for a little not-for-credit seminar some grad students were running. Sure enough, after a single quarter it was shut down as "not applicable to computer science".

(Of course, this is the same department that drove out one of its only female professors by claiming that distributed computing wasn't worth researching and supporting.)

Re:The ASP Effect?

[CodeBuster]

At my school they (Microsoft) donated the licenses and got Dell to throw in all of the computers for a ridiculously low price so the school saved on hardware for the CS labs in any case. The savings was not insignificant (probably a couple million at least all told).

Re:The ASP Effect?

[LWATCDR]

"Drop down menus, radio boxes, etc are "common". Command line? Editing Text files? Apache better get out of the whole in a hurry."
Just how do you use radio boxes and drop down menus over a dial up connection?
You don't.
When I am dealing with a web server it is usually remotely located. I know you can use remote desktop but that really depends on a fast connection.
ssh and the editor of your choice makes doing remote server configuration a lot faster than a remote desktop.
A server needs a GUI like a submarine needs a screen door. Welcome to the dumbing down of IT.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[Jugalator]

Some would argue that IF you have a faster connection than a 56 kbps modem one, they are more efficient working with a GUI though, because that's what they grew up with, not command lines. Watch the generation shift happen. And also watch modem connections being less of a restriction.

Re:The ASP Effect?

[Jugalator]

What we're seeing may be generation shifts though. I'm sure it's especially common among people born in the 60's or 70's to prefer command lines, but I wouldn't be so sure about people who've had advanced user interface solutions around them since they were kids. I'm betting you tend to hate GUI's because you were first taught command line administration of web servers -- am I right?

Re:The ASP Effect?

[LWATCDR]

Unless the you have a network configuration problem. Almost all serious server set ups will have a some kind of modem access so you can get in if the server has a network configuration issue. Usually a machine or two with modems that are hooked up to the other servers with serial cables.
You can call into the modem and the access the other systems consoles.

IIS dying out in Germany

[SgtChaireBourne]

There is also a serious discrepancy in that other stats seem to show IIS on the last moments of extinction in hi-tech zones like Germany. NetCraft report doesn't really have any explanation of the figures it presents.

What's really problematic is that over time NetCraft has become less informative. No mention has been made lately of what the changes in market share are attributed to. In years past, even a percent or two got a few lines of explanation or analysis. Did one of the service packs or 'security' upgrades install and turn on IIS for all Windows users? Or are more domain parkers and cybersquatters using IIS in the server identification string?

This downturn started last year when MS paid GoDaddy to swap out (or claim to swap out) its domain parking. GoDaddy did get the OSS community to lay off by throwing some chump change to OpenSSH and we can see the result of these last 12+ months. The money did some good, but if it's just a one-off donation, then it's questionable whether then benefit offsets the harm. Either way it's funny to see GoDaddy decision makers thinking they can buy indulgences. Maybe it ought to become an annual fee.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[plague3106]

Did one of the service packs or 'security' upgrades install and turn on IIS for all Windows users?

*Sigh* More mindless bashing. Starting with Server 2003 (four years ago now) IIS is off by default. In Vista, its not even installed.

Or are more domain parkers and cybersquatters using IIS in the server identification string?

If you read the link, you'd see they seperate total sites from "active" sites. I took it to mean active as in "not parked." If you look at the active only trends, IIS is even closer to Apache in marketshare.

So the simple explaination is that IIS is being more widely deployed.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[blowdart]

This downturn started last year when MS paid GoDaddy to swap out (or claim to swap out) its domain parking.

Going to karma hell for this but, tell me, is paying someone (if they did) better or worse than Bruce Perens faking host headers in order to boast Apache ratings? Or is that even sillier than your assertion that MS sneaked IIS back on by default? (which of course wouldn't make a big dent anyway as more Windows boxes are behind firewalls than in front, and those ones already exposed on port 80 are probably doing it on purpose).

As the Perens stunt shows netcraft may not just be relying on host headers at all as you seem to think.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[SgtChaireBourne]

Easy to dismiss any and all critique or questioning as "bashing", isn't it. At least part of the question got answered:

... Starting with Server 2003 (four years ago now) IIS is off by default. In Vista, its not even installed.

However, what about XP? Of the MS server platforms MS Server 2003 has negligable market penetration compared to XP.

It's common enough for MS patches and upgrades and services packs to turn things on or off, change configurations or just plain break something. So it's happened before, and since most of us have to work and don't have time or interest to follow the details of MS Windows, it's logical to ask.

It's also logical to ask because the remaining MS Windows users have become so used to that kind of effect from patches, upgrades and service packs that they don't complain. In fact it gains them a few hours of overtime. The press doesn't comment either, because it happens again and again and is business as usual, and because the remaining trade magazines are so dependent on MS advertising that the editors won't let any non-praise slip through.

Easy to dismiss any and all critique or questioning as "bashing", isn't it.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[SgtChaireBourne]

Troll somewhere else. No assertion was made. A question was asked and you do have to admit that even though the answer appears to be "no" that it was/is a possibility.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[plague3106]

However, what about XP? Of the MS server platforms MS Server 2003 has negligable market penetration compared to XP.

SP2 firewalls it by default, IIRC. Also, XP is not a server platform, so I don't know why you'd compare 2003 to XP as servers.

It's common enough for MS patches and upgrades and services packs to turn things on or off, change configurations or just plain break something. So it's happened before, and since most of us have to work and don't have time or interest to follow the details of MS Windows, it's logical to ask.

Not really. The "secure by default" push isn't a one event and now that its "done" MS is going to go back to turning everything on by default. I work with MS products everyday, and nothing has broken as a result of a SP or even update for quite a while now.

It's also logical to ask because the remaining MS Windows users have become so used to that kind of effect from patches, upgrades and service packs that they don't complain. In fact it gains them a few hours of overtime. The press doesn't comment either, because it happens again and again and is business as usual, and because the remaining trade magazines are so dependent on MS advertising that the editors won't let any non-praise slip through.

Um, most people that need to work if MS breaks a patch don't get paid overtime. The press has no problem repeating the same garbage over and over again. They love disaster stories and if something like Sql slammer hit again you can bet they'd be on it.

Easy to dismiss any and all critique or questioning as "bashing", isn't it.

When its not based in any truth, it certainly is.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[SgtChaireBourne]

Jeez. Anything other than praise, including questions, is now dismissed as bashing. No wonder MS is regarded as a cult.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[blowdart]

Well I thought assertion would be better than disingenuous pseudo question, but there you go, can't please everyone.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Dog-Cow]

Windows 2003 *is* the server version of XP. There is no "Windows XP Server Edition". Really, if you don't really know anything at all about Windows, don't raise absurd and stupid questions just to bash it. There is no admin worth the name on this planet that would accept a patch that would silently (install and) enable a major software component such as IIS. To even suggest this as a "logical" question shows you are truly an asshole that lives to put MS down.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[cyber-dragon.net]

There is the problem... by saying "I took it to mean" you are making assumptions just as you are deriding at GP for doing. How do you KNOW that "active" for them doesn't mean "responded?"

Do they actually compare the HTML and count anything above a 95% similarity as one site? That is what they would have to do in order to be analyzing it as you assume they are. Anyone going to that trouble would, as GP suggested, provide some modicum of an explanation as to their methods if for no other reason than to say "See how cool we were?" and score geek points.

The only reason someone does not back up statistics and such, as has been pointed out here many many times, is they are meaningless if you actually say how little work went into obtaining them.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[afd8856]

Regarding MS product naming... I don't get it.
NT was the server version, 9x were the consumer products. So names for servers, numbers for desktops. Now it's names for desktops, numbers for servers? :-)

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[RalphTheWonderLlama]

XP doesn't have IIS installed by default, even with XP Pro.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Mister Whirly]

Yeah, they should try naming their operating systems after cats, as that makes way more sense...

Actually NT was their server and desktop versions. NT Server was the sever version, NT Workstation was the desktop version.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Allador]

However, what about XP? Of the MS server platforms MS Server 2003 has negligable market penetration compared to XP. This sentence makes no sense. XP is not a server platform, its a desktop.

I havent looked at any official statistics, but the vast majority of MS servers I see in the wild are 2003.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[budgenator]

I'd say it's active if it has a customised front page and some adsense links; in short most parkers, typo-squatter and cybersquatters

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[julesh]

How do you KNOW that "active" for them doesn't mean "responded?"

Because if you look through their historical archives, you'll find that whenever they change their methodology, they give a report on the changes. The first survey that has a breakdown into active and inactive explains the criteria they use.

Do they actually compare the HTML and count anything above a 95% similarity as one site? That is what they would have to do in order to be analyzing it as you assume they are. Anyone going to that trouble would, as GP suggested, provide some modicum of an explanation as to their methods if for no other reason than to say "See how cool we were?" and score geek points.

The only reason someone does not back up statistics and such, as has been pointed out here many many times, is they are meaningless if you actually say how little work went into obtaining them.

They do back up the stats. Just because you haven't bothered looking for the details, doesn't mean they aren't there. See description of methodology here. I believe they may have tweaked it a little since then, but can't be bothered to look up the details. The differences aren't major, I believe.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[RobertM1968]

Due to/in addition to the lack of information on what NetCraft's data represents, I would speculate a number of factors, each leading into the other.

• IIS on the same hardware cannot host as many sites as Apache
• With an increase in the number of servers out there, it is likely that as companies try IIS7 - and thus implement more servers than a similar (hardware based) Apache setup would require, this further drives up the number
• With numerous companies switching to Apache, it only makes sense to consolidate multiple IIS servers into one (or a lesser number of) Apache server
• (part of previous point) Many companies using Apache are realizing that since Apache can handle greater multi-homed traffic, and greater connection/TCPIP traffic, I would also presume they are consolidating servers - why run extra hardware when you dont need to?

Of course, all that is speculation - based on some sort of representative accuracy to NetCraft's numbers. And either way, this rather trivial gain is not indicative of "Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position."

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[uhlume]

Also easy enough to answer your own questions with a little research. Now I'm having a hard time deciding whether you're hopelessly lazy, or just trolling.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[thegnu]

I work with MS products everyday, and nothing has broken as a result of a SP or even update for quite a while now.
Well, I'm sitting in a client's office after working from 3-11pm on another job finally getting (I hope) a spontaneous reboot issue on an SBS 2003 install resolved. I have Calyx Point Data Server installed, and it runs a file server. I've had automatic updates disabled FOREVER. I haven't run any windows updates in about 6 months (maybe a year?).

Fucking thing reboots 1 to 5 times a day, but only when people are logged on. No memory dumps, no error thrown until tonight, for a problem that started last Saturday, July 28th. I thought it was a problem with PDS, because there's quite freaking often a problem with PDS, frankly. Nope. I've uninstalled all applications and utilities that are no longer in use. I've disabled all services that I'm sure I can disable without adverse reactions. I've tracked down every stupid little warning having in the event log. I've swapped out the CPU, tested the RAM, switched the NIC to another PCI slot, unmirrored the data drive and disconnected one of the mirrors.

Tonight, I took the problem ID I finally got, and supposedly it's a (somewhat) known problem (that doesn't come up when you search the MS KB) with SP1 on 2k3. Which is odd, considering I've been running on it for at least 6 months without travesty, but hey. I'm just a cave man.

But really. If none of your shit breaks from an update or an upgrade, you're lucky, or doing nothing mission-critical. You may also not notice the problems if you update frequently, because you're moving on to hotfix(snap) to hotfix(*sproiiing!*). To hotfix. Also, if you have autoupdates enabled, you have no idea what's breaking what. AND, if you just use your computer for internet and porn, you are in no position to discuss what may or may not be broken.

In fact, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, YOUR absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. My evidence will kick your lack of evidence's ass across the room any day.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[dbIII]

MS paid GoDaddy to swap out (or claim to swap out) its domain parking. GoDaddy did get the OSS community to lay off by throwing some chump change to OpenSSH

It's likely that different people were involved in each situation. It's childish treating a corporation as a person even if a stupid US court decision long ago did so.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

If the sites/applications on IIS run ASP.NET (which presumably is the reason to run IIS), it is indeed more scalable than sites on PHP (which is dominant on apache).

Explanation: ASP.NET runs (IIS6 - since 2003) in a pooled, threaded environment. PHP needs to run with the Apache prefork MPM. The latter requires a process per request where ASP.NET/IIS requires a thread. Processes are much more memory hungry than is threads.

PHP also provides poor site isolation compared to ASP.NET. ASP.NET uses an "application domain" concept to decouple the isolation concerns from the process. Thus, an IIS server can use the same application pool (process) for multiple sites while still offering intrinsic isoloation. When you host multiple PHP sites on your Apache you can only have intrinsic isolation by means of accounts. This forces every "site" to use its own pool of dedicated processes.

Please also note that your speculation as to the number of servers are not relevant. The Netcraft survey counts *sites* not servers. This means that a box with IIS/Apache but no site with a dns name will not be counted. A site with multiple servers will only be counted once.

Apache cannot (for the above reasons) not handle greater number of multi-homed traffic, unless it is pure static html sites with no need for isolation.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

How long did you have to dig to find the lowest stat for IIS? Germany has 5% penetration for IIS.

Thanks to your link we can see that IIS (according to that survey) only thrives in "low-tech zones" such as:

U.K. 22%
Sweden 35%
Denmark 38%
U.S. 21%
Taiwan 39%
Israel 44%

You, sir, are not reporting honestly. You are deliberately cherry picking results.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[plague3106]

Well, I'm sitting in a client's office after working from 3-11pm on another job finally getting (I hope) a spontaneous reboot issue on an SBS 2003 install resolved. I have Calyx Point Data Server installed, and it runs a file server. I've had automatic updates disabled FOREVER. I haven't run any windows updates in about 6 months (maybe a year?).

Funny, I run an SBS 2003 server as well and don't have the problem you describe. Seaching on the newsgroups, not many people have your problem. I suspect hardware personally.

I've swapped out the CPU, tested the RAM, switched the NIC to another PCI slot, unmirrored the data drive and disconnected one of the mirrors.

What about the MB? Are you sure your IDE / SATA controller isn't dying? You didn't rule out hardware here, you ruled out a few things. It could be a faulty power supply.

Tonight, I took the problem ID I finally got, and supposedly it's a (somewhat) known problem (that doesn't come up when you search the MS KB) with SP1 on 2k3. Which is odd, considering I've been running on it for at least 6 months without travesty, but hey. I'm just a cave man.

Yet you omit it here.

But really. If none of your shit breaks from an update or an upgrade, you're lucky, or doing nothing mission-critical. You may also not notice the problems if you update frequently, because you're moving on to hotfix(snap) to hotfix(*sproiiing!*). To hotfix. Also, if you have autoupdates enabled, you have no idea what's breaking what. AND, if you just use your computer for internet and porn, you are in no position to discuss what may or may not be broken.

Well if you think an SBS server running a doctors office and many Win2k3 servers running a medium sized business isn't mission critical, then I guess you have a point. We've also recently begun pushing updates to our workstations via WSUS as well. Not one reported problem.

In fact, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, YOUR absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. My evidence will kick your lack of evidence's ass across the room any day.

A few isolated cases is not indicitive of problems with patches in general either. Your ONE problem isn't proof of anything; as I've said, you still have quite a bit of hardware to rule out as a problem.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[Andy57413]

Also I think it's worthwhile to note that world wide IIS has actually lost 1% market share in the last six months. January,2007: http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200701/ index.html July,2007: http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200707/ index.html

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[thegnu]

Yet you omit it here.
I wasn't working on the server that was performing the SP2 installation. Fancy that. I'll be happy to email it to you when I am.

What about the MB? Are you sure your IDE / SATA controller isn't dying? You didn't rule out hardware here, you ruled out a few things. It could be a faulty power supply.
I left out the system burn-in I ran, which however inconclusive, is pretty decent. I'm not sure about the IDE or SATA controllers, but I've been chasing down this bullcrap as I have things to chase down, then I have to wait a day (or two, if for some reason I can't stay up till 2am that day) to troubleshoot it. Replacing the motherboard and PSU is the next damn thing to do.

Well if you think an SBS server running a doctors office and many Win2k3 servers running a medium sized business isn't mission critical, then I guess you have a point. We've also recently begun pushing updates to our workstations via WSUS as well. Not one reported problem.
I apologize. You didn't give that impression in your previous post.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[tbannist]

Actually, I think it might just be tie-in.

Blackberry servers require exchange to function.
Exchange requires Windows.
Once you've got Exchange and Windows running, then Sharepoint pops up it's head.
It wants to integrate your Web site and your Exchange server, but it only works with IIS.
So now to host an integrated Web site/email system, you have to run IIS too.

Now if you're a pointy-haired boss you see your tech department running Apache and IIS, two different web servers. Well, that obviously ineffecient, training for two seperate archetectures. We need to shut one down. Well we can't get rid of the MS servers because they're running the email and customer relations software, so we have to get rid of this apache stuff. So what if we need to run more windows servers to serve the same number of web sites, less staff and less training costs overwhelms the hardware costs at least in the short run.

It's all about proprietary lock-in, as it always is with Microsoft.

Re:IIS dying out in Germany

[RobertM1968]

While your response is technically accurate, the fact remains that IIS' use of those threads and memory spaces is abysmal. If IIS was coded well, or the threading engine/scheduler in WinAnything was decent, then your statement would be valid. If MS fixes this, then your statement would be valid. Real world tests dispute the technical matters you indicate (which SHOULD be an accurate portrayal of IIS/.NET capabilities, but arent).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[twitter]

/No Text/

I think you meant:

// no

or

/* no */

Of course, I have to laugh along with you because IIS topping LAMP is simply absurd. I've seen a few moves in this direction, but they are always some kind of top-down brain death that lessens reliability and features. In any competitive environment, where people are competent, IIS does not stand a chance.

Module compatibility?

[mi]

The incompatible changes in the Apache module API could have something to do with it, hm?

People proposing Apache: We'll need this module, and this one. Oops, we can't mix them, because one is only for Apache-1.x and the other — for Apache-2.x. We'll need to port one of them.

People proposing IIS: While those punks do their "porting" you can have an IIS-based solution up and running next week.

Tought choice, is not it?

Re:Module compatibility?

[netik]

Honestly, there's not that many modules that are substantially incompatible with each other between 1.3.x and 2.x.

In my many years of running major web sites under Apache, the only module that ever was an annoyance was mod_evasive vs mod_dosevasive / mod_bw.

Most popular application servers have compatible modules to Apache, and the majority of users don't run anything but static HTML.

Re:Module compatibility?

[the_womble]

I wish I have not used up the last of my mod points earlier today.

People have been slow to switch to Apache 2, but, now that people are and most modules are available, Apache might regain some ground.

Incidentally, IIS was in almost as strong a position (looking at the "Top Servers Across All Domains" graph) early in 2002, and slipped again.

Does it matter anymore?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Does it matter anymore? The point was made years ago. Apache's triumph on the web was touted during a time when we were trying to make a point that open source software was legitimate for large scale use in the real world. Everyone knows that now. In fact, open source has conclusively, and probably forever, denied Microsoft a monopoly in the server market. If they are making gains now (and yes, their biggest gains are most certainly in parking sites, to whom they probably pay megabucks for no other purpose than to skew the Netcraft survey) it isn't really relevant.

Re:Does it matter anymore?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"In fact, open source has conclusively, and probably forever, denied Microsoft a monopoly in the server market."

If you look at the netcraft graph, Apache denied Netscape and Sun far more than Microsoft. When Apache entered the market, Netscape servers ruled the roost, followed by Sun. By the time Microsoft entered the arena, Apache was becoming the dominant player, and destroyed Netscape and Sun shortly thereafter. Then Microsoft started to make some headway in 2002, then Apache increased its lead to 50 percentage points in 2005, but Microsoft has gained ever since Nov 2005 to cut Apache's lead to its smallest yet today (12 percentage points). In fact, the opposite of what you state is true - Microsoft denied Apache a monopoly in the web server space, not the other way around.

Oh, and it's not just "parked sites". The GoDaddy switch was a one time thing and doesn't explain Microsoft's continuous rise since then. (And it's likely that Apache still has many more parked sites than IIS does.)

Sites vs IP numbers

[SgtChaireBourne]

If that's the methodology, then the more obvious solution is to base any statistics on IP address, and not on sites. Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would use a "site" as the primary means of doing web server counts.

One IP number can represent dozens of name virtual hosts. So if you count IP numbers you get stats favoring IIS, which has closer to a 1:1 ratio (or worse) of machine to web presence. If you count hostnames, you get stats favoring all other HTTP servers.

And if you limit your survey to HTTP compliance then you eliminate all IIS sites. Add in TCP/IP compliance and you eliminate anything hosted on MS Windows, accidentally, out of ignorance or otherwise not just IIS but also Lighttpd and Apache.

Re:Microsoft Is Superior

[thedrunkensailor]

i've only had to compile apache once due to custom options - the defualt install on MOST linux OSes just needs to have apache turned on and off she goes

Lower Quality Admins

[pembo13]

I think the main reason for this is that the quality of admins is dropping. I say this not because they are using a Microsoft product, but because more and more my interactions with supposed sysadmins are quite depressing.

Another FOSSie failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O

I think a better question is there any compelling reason TO use apache.

Apache is supposed to be teh Lunix's flagship product, and for about 95% of people who use Lunix it's the ONLY reason (cool, hey, free OS and free web server). But since that is the case... FOSSies do a horrible job of keeping their "customers" happy (a scenario which would be different if, say, Apache were actually losing money because if it).

Why is it that Apache still can't install properly on every Lunix distro? I guess it's more the fault of the people managing teh Lunix's installation packagers, but even so- there is no reason installing Apache should require manually moving files and editing config files to get it working.

That is also a problem with FOSS in general: if a commercial product had such serious problems for so long, programmer's heads would be rolling. But since nobody is actually getting paid to support Apache (aside from some poor dupe's armada of consultants since they foolishly locked in their company to FOSS and can't escape), the same FOSSie programmers who painted the product into this corner are still running the show. What are you going to do, fire the guy who runs the project? And even if you did... he isn't getting paid anyway- what decent programmer would want to take his place and handle all that for free?

You are going to see IIS gain marketshare at the same rate that enterprise-level corporations start moving onto the internet. The enterprise doesn't trust FOSS, and for many good reasons (such as the aforementioned FOSS Lock-In. FOSSies would have you believe they are "all about choice", but what they really mean is you can choose any application, so long as they choose it for you. And look out if your company chooses a Microsoft solution: bitter is the wrath of those who desperately need their world sugar-coated.

Re:Another FOSSie failure

[jedidiah]

>> Why is it that Apache still can't install properly on every Lunix distro?

What the H*LL are you talking about? You know it's really rude not to share your drugs with the rest of us...

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[Macthorpe]

Let us venture into Twitter's brain to see the thought process behind this post:

"What? Evidence that Linux lost marketshare in something? UNPOSSIBLE! Looks like I'll have to make something up as usual!"

Are you that insecure in the software you use that you have to see any minor percentage point change in something as either the end of Microsoft or anti-Linux FUD?

Re:Actually, I think it is something else entirely

[nstlgc]

Which is why they're counting sites (hostnames), not servers.

And why not?

[HerculesMO]

It's easy to set up, comes with Windows, easy to administer and is out of the box, extremely secure. Adding load balancing is a snap and works really well. Doesn't cost a dime either.

It's one of Microsoft's best products.

There is no reason why it shouldn't compete with Apache -- it does a lot of work and works really well. I know with the MS haters on Slashdot we may get some opposition to my remarks but let's face it -- sometimes good engineers and programmers exist at Microsoft too. They have been known to make more than a few good products.

Re:And why not?

[MightyMartian]

My measure of how well software, particularly daemons/servers, works is how difficult it is to diagnose and repair problems. Everything is wonderful when it's working. It's when things stop working that the real mettle of a server is tested. I find IIS to be rather difficult to fix. Vague log entries, a complicated and difficult-to-navigate configuration scheme and the additional issues because it's so tightly integrated into the Windows security scheme can make it absolute nightmare to debug and repair.

Re:And why not?

[HerculesMO]

It's got its downsides, of course.. IIS 7 gets a separate entry in the event log (as do all applications now programmed for Vista and beyond). You will find your complaints well addressed after that :)

I should make the point though, that when something in IIS breaks -- it's usually not the fault of IIS but rather the application. Either that, or somebody changed a setting which, if you have good auditing software, can be easy to figure out.

Re:And why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't cost a dime either

huh?

Re:And why not?

[zigamorph]

Well, most car accidents are caused by driver error but people still want cars that protect them better.

Re:Actually, I think it is something else entirely

[CodeShark]

Missed my point slightly but I should have been more specific about the link between Google manipulation and how many sites can be run on a single server. A huge number of "sites" nowadays are nothing more than "Google manipulating front ends" for the same site in the background. As Microsoft has been buying web space in the form of GoDaddy, etc. I would expect their numbers to jump quite quickly and profoundly -- without really adding content sites, and since the same server can offer up a huge increase in what are in reality jump sites it is cheap good business news (not to mention FUD) for M$ to convert a bunch of formerly Apache driven junk sites to IIS junk sites.

Professionally I have yet to see an IIS driven content management suite that I would pay the MS license cost for, let alone a software developer making a proprietary CMS on a closed source server. Vs. numerous Open Source CMS sites which I have already installed.

Casual developers may be driving this

[caywen]

I find that from the web developer's perspective, there's a bit of a technological sandwich that occurs with the level of sophistication that the platforms allow. A lot of web devs are looking for a no-code solution to setting up a site/mashup/blog/storefront/whatever and in this case, I believe most apache-based systems work great for this. A lot of web devs are also looking for a system that gives them a solid platform for writing very sophisticated, architected solutions, and apache also shines in this regard. However, a lot of devs are looking for something in between - write some simple code (C#, VB) to do relatively simple database queries, and create data-driven pages. Though there are great apache solutions to this, IIS/ASP.NET works really well for these in-betweens, too, and combined with Visual Studio, is pretty compelling to a lot of people. Perhaps some dynamic is driving a lot of web devs to this middle area.

...and lighttpd, nginx, etc

[^Z]

Oftentimes frontends are not Apache but something lightweight.
Apache, being venerable and versatile, is not exactly lightweight, even th 2.x branch.

MIcrosoft Learns

[parvenu74]

In case you haven't noticed, the brain-trust at Microsoft doesn't sit still, and they have the financial and monopolistic resources to try and try again until they get it right. Moreover, as C# and .NET have shown, when you get the right people involved (Anders Hejlsberg) on making an in-house version of a very compelling technology (Java), Microsoft is more than capable at delivering a winner.

In the case of IIS 7, they have finally decided to create a Windows webserver in the modular blueprint of Apache. The betas of IIS 7 show that performance and security are better than anything that's come before it -- not just any IIS, but any webserver. Hell, the guys at Zend are saying that Zend on IIS 7 will be the most robust way to deploy PHP! And this is all built on the evolved form of Windows 2003 server, which has been the most secure O/S ever released by MS, something that a even a n00b with one weekend of training can lock down as tight as your favorite flavor or Linux.

Rather than stand around and argue about it, y'all need to get to work on Apache 3... and get ready to play catchup to MS again. The insecure days of IIS 5 are long gone; you've got your work cut out for you.

Re:Microsoft Learns

[cheros]

they have the financial and monopolistic resources to try and try again until they get it right.

(1) Maybe, just maybe, do I object to being part of a beta test / learning process. Maybe I'm not quite a 'regular' user, but I feel strongly that if I invest in something like software, that should pay for the development. I don't see why I should sink extra time in coping with the deficiencies that should not have been there to start with.

(2) OK, so why did it take them so long? It's not like the company is short of talent, but somehow they seem to be unable to harnass it.

Re:MIcrosoft Learns

[PHPfanboy]

I have no idea who you are or who you spoke to at Zend who said IIS7 will be the most robust way to run PHP, perhaps you misinterpreted that it would be the most robust way to run PHP on *Windows* (which is indeed true because of the new FastCGI handler).

Zend collaboration with Microsoft aims to bring performance and reliability parity with Linux and aid application developers who want to deploy (and develop) PHP on Windows.

Trust me (I'm not a doctor, nor Zeev or Andi)

Re:MIcrosoft Learns

[Anonymous Coward]

evolved form of Windows 2003 server, which has been the most secure O/S ever released by MS

Tha's not saying much. ;)

blah

[s0c0]

I think this has more to do with the server OS than the web server. It's just easier to setup a windows server than a linux server, and yes I know you can run apache on Windows, but really why do that? I sure wouldn't and I definitely prefer apache. In fact I think apache is one of the easiest things to configure. If you're just looking for a page to server static content it's ready to go after an apt-get install apache2 or if you want dynamic content apt-get install apache2 php5 mysql5.

That's Crazy Talk (TM)

[twitter]

some n00b admin couldn't exactly master Apache in a weekend like they could IIS. I personally use Apache on my servers. But I could also take my good old time configuring them because I'm not planning on making any money from them.

If running a Wizard makes a master, "apt-get install apache" does too.

Money making is exactly where people have mastered Apache and there's plenty of their good work available as preconfigured packages for every distribution. Do you really want to go through money, paperwork, registration, activation and all that every time you add a new server? Do you really want to spend all of your time on endless patches that break your customization but don't do anything to thwart crackers?

He's Mostly Right

[repetty]

Quote:
> A "n00b admin" isn't going to be able to master anything in a weekend.
> They might figure out how to set something up & get it working but
> mastery is a long ways off.

As far as his manager is concerned, he did master it in a weekend. Now piss off.

Re:Actually, I think it is something else entirely

[nstlgc]

I think you certainly have a point with the huge number of "generated content" sites these days, but I'm not sure how that plays out in the advantage of Microsoft. From what I've seen (and I don't by far claim to be an expert on this) those content generators (or at least the two that I've seen) run on Unix boxes, and thus probably help raise Apache's number. No real facts or numbers there, though.

Apache can be easier to configure too

[the_womble]

Webmin is easy enough to use.

Some Linux distros come with tools to make setting up Apache easy as well. I just set up a test LAMP stack on my Mandriva desktop and it was very simple, apart form one well known and documented problem (you need to install MySQL before mod_php). All point and click, of course.

Ubuntu can install a LAMP stack for you when you install the OS. I do not find configuration of Apache on Ubuntu so easy though.

Really Easy.

[twitter]

Yes, and to me it's easier to see/find stuff then when I have to scroll for miles through the config files on my apache servers.

1. grep "keyword" -r
2. texteditor_of_choice "found_file.txt"
3. read helpful comments and edit to suit purpose

Also, don't forget to apt-cache search keyword webserver_of_choice to see if someone has not already done your customization for you. Google the results to see which is right for you.

Compare this to the average GUI maze of tabs and checkboxes without comments or rational directions. The choice is obvious unless you do exactly what Bill Gates thinks you should do and enjoy pressing "I agree" and "forward".

Re:Really Easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maze of tabs and checkboxes"?

What are you people, complete retards?

Here, I thought I was at a "News for nerds" site... but it seems it's filled with GUI-Pussies that are daunted by checkboxes and tabs.

Quit the fucking whining and go enroll in a special-ed computer class pronto.

Re:Really Easy.

[dedazo]

Compare this to the average GUI maze of tabs and checkboxes

You mean:

1. Open the MMC and right-click on the object of interest
2. Find the relevant checkbox, which you should be able to locate easily after you've done this twice
3. Alternatively, click on the "Help" button to read the "rational directions" or do a Google search. Wow, there's information about IIS out there!
4. Activate checkbox
5. Click OK

If you're feeling adventurous you can of course open the IIS metabase file on a text editor and do exactly the same thing, but whatever floats your boat.

Bill Gates thinks you should do and enjoy pressing "I agree" and "forward".

Oh, I see what you did there. Clever, yes. Would you like to point out to us where in IIS there is an "I Agree" button?

I'm actually curious as to what you think is so inherently superior about the 1337 text editor approach? Is that your security blanket or something? When was the last time you actually administered IIS, BTW? I ask because I honestly don't see a "maze of tabs and checkboxes" there, but just a utilitarian UI to manage server settings.

The International Space Station?!

[bigtallmofo]

As a practical matter any code of interest can run on ISS but rather less can run on Apache and less again on LAMP.

Despite being able to run any code of interest as you say, I would think that the market share of sites running on the International Space Station is quite a bit lower than that running on Internet Information Server.

Metaconfiguration

[herve_masson]

I totally second you here. The complexity is not on the same magnitude, like it or not. Yes, there are plenty of bundles that make apache easier to setup, but as soon as you want something that goes beyond the coverage of those packages, you endup writing apache configuration files. IIS can definitely do more in this aspect.

I always thought what really lack apache is some meta-configuration tool: a program that turns some plain-english configuration data (which could fit well in a GUI, if possible) and generates apache directives. Apache config is brilliant and powerful, but does not meet average user's expertise.

I have hacked such tool myself when my servers configurations became too big for my own brain. It works really well and makes you focus on high level features more than details. In other words, you can do much more with less headache.

Maybe something like that already exists; it wasn't the case last time I checked.

Apache heading the way of the dodo

[Anonymous Coward]

> I can't really understand the reason behind the Apache decline.

Simply put: Dedicated app servers and reverse proxies suit current hosting requirements better.

Apache is the best all-round server for shared virtual hosting. When you're running on a VM; nginx, lighttpd and other less resource intensive contenders are more sensible choices. It's sad to see Apache appearing to lose ground to IIS, but my remaining sites will be moving from Apache 1.3 to nginx.

That might help

[Sycraft-fu]

Usability is important. I know it is somewhat popular in the OSS community to take the "Well you should just learn how to do it," attitude, but that doesn't fly with many people. They want easy to use and providing that makes your alternative more attractive.

However that's only part of it, another part is Visual Studio. You can declare it to be worthless, inferior to PHP, etc, but you are only fooling yourself. Visual Studio is an extremely slick development environment and being able to run the programs it creates on your webserver is worth a lot to some people. This is, of course, an IIS/Windows only thing.

However for many, yes a pointy-and-clicky installer and configuration would go a long way to getting them to use it. You want the barrier for entry to be as low as possible. Anything you do that raises it will cut down on your market share.

Re:That might help

[revengance]

You are right about M$ creating products with low barrier to entry. However, due to this low barrier to entry, you get bad everything because 80% (from my experience from interactions with my co-workers) of the people writing the programs or administrating the system are well, a bit low on their technical knowledge side. Not that they are that bad, but most people was so happy whenever they get a working system that they never bothers to think in depth of the ramifications of the way they wrote the software or configure their systems or learn about how the system actually works. (Most people wait patiently for windows explorer to be loaded when they plugin in their remoable drive which contains hundred of megabytes of tens of thousand of zipped files). It might not be a bad idea to make sure that the programmer/system admin is trained in certain skills before they can get the tools workings. At least, everyone can sleep well at night rather than me constantly banging my head against the wall due to "ingenius" pieces of work that was handed down to me. Forgive me for my whining, and yes, I still had not figure out why my NFS server happens to work.

FrontPage Extensions

[Anonymous Coward]

The upswing of IIS and downswing of apache could partially be from FrontPage Extensions for *nix. It's been almost 1 year since MS canned them. (removing ALL SUPPORT and security updates)

FrontPage is going away and Expression Web.

Now think most people who use those tools can only say FrontPage and when they hear that there are no longer extensions for *nix what will they do? Migrate rather than use WebDAV or FTP something else...

Granted these aren't Fortune 500 companies... but they do want to move because they are scared...

At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

I personally think IIS is a superior webserver to Apache. I speak as someone who's had to administer both systems, and like anything each has thier own quirks + benefits etc, but crucially...

Apache is not as modular as IIS (v7 that is). IIS7 you can literally strip it so bare, all it can do is send empty HTTP 200 responses - an absolute shell of a webserver. Not even file html/file-system support. Want disk-access? Turn on disk-access module. Want asp.net? Turn on the asp.net module. Absolutely everything (and really, everything) is a module that can be ripped out.

IIS6+ deals with HTTP requests at a kernel level. That is core functionality such as responses, caching, etc are all dealt with at ring0. Performance is unbeatable.

Oh and security? IIS6 has never been rooted, ever. Add-ons have been (asp.net for instance), but IIS6 has never been.

Oh, and it's locked down by default. And easy to administer.

In my opinion Linux is probably the better OS to host a webserver on, but IIS does spank Apache all over I'm afraid - mainly for the stated reasons above.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Anonymous Coward]

> IIS6+ deals with HTTP requests at a kernel level. That is core
> functionality such as responses, caching, etc are all dealt with
> at ring0. Performance is unbeatable.

Tux spanked IIS silly last time I looked. Doing HTTP in the kernel isn't a security trade-off many admins have traditionally been prepared to make. Perhaps tux will gain more traction on virtualized hosts where security may be less critical.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[zigamorph]

IIS6+ deals with HTTP requests at a kernel level. That is core functionality such as responses, caching, etc are all dealt with at ring0. Performance is unbeatable. Oh and security? IIS6 has never been rooted, ever. Add-ons have been (asp.net for instance), but IIS6 has never been.

Of course, when it is, the attacker will be in ring-0.

In contrast: if my web-server is rooted, the attacker is in a limited SE-linux contexts locked down to only have access appropriate for a web-server. It can't even access remote ports (like smtp, ftp, irc, ...).

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[MagikSlinger]

There's also an elephant in the room: The Apache config file.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

Not so simple as that I'm afraid - http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1765

Bear in mind that the core, being in kernel mode, is less likely to fail as it's running completely separate from any ISAPI filters, user-applications, etc. Regardless, we are talking an extremely simple part of the kernel which deals with the lowest level of HTTP - anything more complex is pass onto an appropriate user-mode process, which for anything remotely dangerous will be running in its own isolated application pool.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Tom]

IIS6+ deals with HTTP requests at a kernel level. That is core functionality such as responses, caching, etc are all dealt with at ring0. Performance is unbeatable. The biggest plus and biggest liability of the windos system. Running crucial non-kernel functionality at ring 0. Yes, it gives you performance. Early windos versions would've been unusable without trickery like that. At the same time, it's a security, reliability and debugging nightmare. It also makes it necessary to essentially re-write windos every few years, because you can't incrementally update all this low-level shit - it's too much to do it all at once, and it'll break in fascinating ways if you don't.

MS is - and always has been - an engineering shop. They never invented anything, and they don't do good design, either. What they're good at is the same thing the chinese are good at: Copy stuff from elsewhere and manufacture more of it cheaper. They're also really good at marketing.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[dave420]

So you're sacrificing performance all the time for an eventuality that might never happen. Doesn't sound too logical. It's like driving your car at 10mph all the time because if you have an accident, it'll do less damage.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[dave420]

That's IIS6 - what about IIS7?

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[QuoteMstr]

Performance isn't really a problem when using Apache.

Okay, when you serve a request, you're either running a program (in some way) to generate the content, or you're serving something already on disk, using the webserver itself.

In the first case, dynamic content, the specifics of the server are going to be lost in the noise. We benchmarked my company's webserver overhead at 3ms on a 100ms request, and that's pretty typical of web applications. Getting that down to 2ms is not going to increase overall performance much.

In the second case, that of static content, there are much better servers than Apache anyway. For the sake of argument, I'll grant that IIS is twice as fast as Apache at serving static content. But it doesn't matter! Serving static content is still much faster than serving those dynamically-generated pages. A client is likely to spend far more time waiting for dynamic page generation and actual HTTP transfers than waiting for the server to start sending a static file.

And static content is instantly clusterable as well, since there's no state. logo2.png doesn't need to hit the database, I imagine, and if you're big enough to care about static content performance, you're big enough to get more than one machine anyway.

What is boils down to is that Apache is free, Free, and flexible. IIS may have improved in the latter lately, but it's hard to imagine something that can't be accomplished with Apache's module system. You can even strip it down to being able to serve bare HTTP requests, if you'd like, but why would you ever want to?

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

Again, that's not really the case. If you look at what is dealt with in kernel mode, it's extremely low-level. Anything more complex than handling & queuing HTTP requests or returning cache is handed off to isolated user-mode processes.

Have a look - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/technologies/webapp/iis/iis6perf.mspx

Thus, even basic file-handling is done by an isolated process running at the lowest level of security by default (Network Service in Win2k3).

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

Fair enough points, I'll agree. It's just nice to see that finally, Microsoft is seeing that "more is less".

The more of a 'potato' you can make your webserver (for any webserver), while not compromising its purpose, the faster, more secure, and more reliable it'll be.

Again, that's why I actually think IIS7 on Linux would be the absolute ultimate web-stack, ever, amen. The two are now very closely aligned in design principals (more is less).....oh well, when hell freezes over I suppose!

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[QuoteMstr]

I'm still not sure what you're after that the free software world. If it's raw performance you're after (even though it's not really necessary), there are alternatives to Apache, like lighttpd. If it's GUI management, well, just try the config file. It's much easier to work with than any GUI tool I've worked with.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[QuoteMstr]

What's the benefit of doing basic HTTP in kernel mode then? You still have to hand the data off to userspace before actually handling the request, and parsing headers won't go any faster in kernelspace than in userspace.

The benefit of running in the kernel is that system call overhead is nil. If what you're doing in the kernel doesn't save on syscalls, then you're better off moving it to userspace for safety. Doing bare-bones HTTP in the kernel smells to me like either a gimmick or some kind of nasty scheduler workaround, not a bona fide performance technique.

What TUX does is do the whole thing in kernel space, at least for static content.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

Caching, queuing, URL parsing, and TCP/IP interfacing comes to mind. All very important tasks....for caching especially; handing over everything to user mode processes is quite heavy on CPU (relatively speaking) so if it can be dealt with at a kernel level, it saves an awful lot of workload.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[QuoteMstr]

You're arguing by assertion. You tell us that it's faster to do these things in the kernel. I asked how that is, and you're now responding by saying, again, that it's faster in the kernel.

URL parsing is string manipulation, and that's going to happen at the same speed in userspace.

"Queuing" seems a little vague, but if it's TCP connection queuing you're talking about, that's always been done in kernel space. "TCP/IP interfacing," likewise, has always been done in kernel space too. See the listen man page (or MSDN documentation section -- winsock works the same way.)

Caching is a function of the page cache. The most recently used disk blocks are already in kernel memory, and are already cached. The kernel will send that cached data using open, then write, splice, sendfile, etc. Did you have a different meaning of "caching" in mind?

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Toreo asesino]

At the risk of repeating what has already been written, please refer to this document which should explain all.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/technologies/webapp/iis/iis6perf.mspx

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[QuoteMstr]

Let me analyze some of the claims provided:

• By keeping TCP connections open at the kernel level, a faulting application can be restarted without the user knowing.
  
  That's not likely to be useful. First of all, a faulting application might have already sent data to the user. Restarting the request from scratch is just going to send nonsense HTML in that case. Second, chances are that if an application faults for a given request once, it's going to fault the second, third, and fourth times you try that request. Most bugs are not sporadic.
  
  Furthermore, if you really wanted to do restarts, you could do it just as well in userland by using a top-level exception handler or equivalent.
  
  
• By keeping TCP connections open in the kernel, new connection requests can keep coming in while an application restarts
  
  Either an application comes up quickly or it doesn't. If it comes up quickly, the requests that come in during a restart can be handled by other servers in a cluster. If you don't have a cluster, you don't care enough about uptime for this to apply to you.
  
  If it doesn't come up quickly, then your HTTP queue is going to fill up anyway, and you're in the same boat you started with.
  
  
• Kernel-mode caching
  
  I concede that there might be some performance gain with the approach given. However, I believe it would be lost in the noise, especially considering a dynamic web application. The page cache I described will give you almost all the performance of this GET cache, and without any of the risks of kernel-mode code.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Anonymous Coward]

TCP/IP is handled in kernel-land. For a user-mode process to handle it there must be a context switch between kernel and user which is a fairly hefty process. Every single inbound packet would involve this context switch.

By offering the basic HTTP services at kernel level you remove this kernel/user switch at the most basic level. The queuing mechanism queues complete requests, not individual packets. Instead of individual TCP/IP packets being passed back and forth you have complete requests, reducing the number of switches. This also provides the ability to hold the request temporarily if the handler is unavailable, in the case of a recycle or failure. If there is a failure in the user-mode process which is intended to handle the request the request will be queued while the process is restarted and no requests are lost.

As for caching, it permits entire static content requests to be handled without having to switch between kernel/user at all. If the image was already served and in cache the request simply grabs from cache and sends back. This is the model on which Tux was built, which is a very fast webserver.

Microsoft's track record with IIS up until version 5.1 was very poor, and for good reason. But Microsoft really heeded the call from Gartner and their partners and retooled IIS6 into a very capable and very powerful webserver. The security record is just outstanding. Despite the outcry about the kernel-level services IIS6 has not been rooted once in four years. IIS7 takes it even further with an extreme level of modularity and configurability.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bear in mind that the core, being in kernel mode, is less likely to fail as it's running completely separate from any ISAPI filters, user-applications, etc. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.....HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

oh man that was great, keep it up!

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[zigamorph]

Most cars ARE full of compromises made to increase safety. Strip out seat-belts, indicator lights, air-bags and all structural reinforcements not needed for performance and you'll have a faster car that will kill you if you crash.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Tom]

I know the basic idea. It's not exactly an innovation. Heck, you had khttpd in Linux how many years ago?

Very useful if you really need to serve stuff out at speeds no network cards on the market can handle.

It still means every bug in it is a kernel-level bug.

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[alex_ndc]

Oh and security? IIS6 has never been rooted, ever. Add-ons have been (asp.net for instance), but IIS6 has never been. That was the point to make it modular in the first place ... if a fatal bug is discovered, they can blame it on the modules :)

Re:At the risk of being flamed...

[Anonymous Coward]

It may or may not be accurate to say IIS has never been rooted, I don't know. What I do know is that the default module set has been and can be rooted with little to no effort, and that an overwhelming number of IIS installations are configured to the defaults. The average Windows system administrator probably can't secure IIS, where the average Unix system administrator could do a passable job with a current version of Apache.

It's all well and good to say that a piece of code that does no more than the HTTP equivalent of "Hello World" and load the modules that do actual work is unrootable, but it's dishonest to say that steaming pile of crap is secure. It's secure only if you strip functionality to the point where it can't do much more than send 200 OK.

MIcrosoft Charges Too

[mpapet]

I admin both win2003 and Debian boxes. What you say may be true, but you don't address the COST of windows-server-2007.

In my particular environment (high-availability, low-cpu count) microsoft license costs are extremely high compared to the same feature set in Linux. If you move into high-availability high-cpu count the costs are astronomical.

I have a sneaking suspicion that either:

A. Microsoft is gaming the system explicitly. (ex. Netcraft adjusts their collection methods)
B. Microsoft is gaming the system implicitly. (ex. the Office back end crack pipe.)

The idea that even an idiot parking domains would **pay** for something they previously got free is implausible.

OT Comment
I suspect some of the .net fanboys in this post are shills, because I just don't find it *that* much better than a Free stack.

Re:MIcrosoft Charges Too

[Anonymous Coward]

Regarding the cost of Windows Server 2007: there isn't a no-cost scenario in play. Either you pay more for the software and less for the MCSE to run it, or you pay much more for an adept linux guru to compensate for the fact you're not getting official support for Debian. Where does Linux own the market without exception? With ISPs and startups that have highly proficient people on staff to keep all the machines going. Walk into any other type of business with revenue of a million dollars or more and you're going to see licensed server software, whether it's Windows, Red Hat, Solaris, O/S 400, Oracle or whatever. Most businesses aren't interested in taking on risk in the form of unsupported software (and they don't consider "the community" to be real support). The old saying was that nobody got fired for hiring IBM; these days it could be restated: nobody gets fired for buying licensed software from a Fortune 500 software company.

Re:MIcrosoft Charges Too

[Richthofen80]

OT Comment
I suspect some of the .net fanboys in this post are shills, because I just don't find it *that* much better than a Free stack.

I have developed on both sides of the coin for the web. I have deployed large PHP-based web applications and large .NET web applications (with C# as the language). I have worked with IIS, LAMP, etc. And I can tell you that PHP is the best way to deploy an easy-to-modify solution in a short amount of time.

C# is an awesome language, and I love writing Windows Forms apps with it (you'll notice that a good deal of the iPhone quick-to-the-world hacks have been delivered with .NET frontends). However, C# and even VB.NET both lose it because the web is stateless, and therefore by extension, it ends up being type-less. VB is supposed to be 'type-unsafe' but it strictly enforces non-trivial types because every datatype is an object in the .NET runtime. Whereas perl and PHP are as type unsafe as you can get, with scalars becoming arrays becoming anything. And that type-unsafety is necessary in the short-term memory world of the web. most web apps do one or two things, and that is shoving data into a medium that can be remembered and recalculated. Session Variables, Cookies, form fields are all represented by strings. Most database objects are represented by strings in the insert/update/select queries from which they are derived. In C# and to a lesser extent VB, I spend most of my time shoehorning data or views into an object or a control that doesn't match.

A lot of times my manager will come in and want to tweak a datagrid or a detailsview to show another level of information, or add a different behavior. With the ASP.NET control model, I have to override the OnRender event on a control to draw a row slightly different in the event we're looking at field X. in PHP I could just change the smarty template.

Or, if my shopping cart needs to track a new type of item, I can just say $_SESSION['cart']['products'][$x]['newproperty'] == true
in ASP.NET I have to walk backwards into the Shopping Cart object that I created in the App_Code Folder. Then I have to make sure at the begining and end of every page that uses the cart, that I serialize and unserialize the custom object. PHP lets me go ahead and build objects-on-the-fly, with ambiguous typing, and that allows me faster turnaround.

So yeah, I bet some of the .NET talk is snarky and unexperienced.

Apache on Windows

[athloi]

Apache on windows is not a difficult install. I've done it many times, for multi-homed domains, and it works quite well.

People install IIS so they can use Microsoft's varied and highly efficient enterprise application development tools. The tools are superior for business needs, and so with them come the operating system and web server.

I continue to prefer Apache on FreeBSD (not Linux) as my primary platform if I want stuff to work right from the beginning, but on Windows 2003 or greater or Linux from the same vintage, practical performance (real-world factors that users and business cohorts will notice) is very, very close.

The operating system has grown up and so has the web server. The vast gulfs in performance are no longer so vast. I'm not sure how I feel about this either. Part of me will forever be nostalgic for the computer gang warfare days of the 1980s, when Apple II users snubbed PC owners, Commodore 64/128 users were lawbreaking maniacs, the weird kids used Ataris to make techno and the Amiga people were as annoying as the Macintosh people are today.

Interestingly, from the days of the 286 onward, finding home UNIXen was not as difficult as one might think. First AT&T, then Minix, then a number of ports of Berkeley and AT&T UNIXes came down the path. True, it required top-notch hardware, but that was an artifact of the time when most machines were 1-8 MHz boxes.

Ah, nostalgia!

Re:Apache on Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, nostalgia!

Bah. It's not as good as the nostalgia we had back in the day!

Interesting

[jbellows_20]

I find it interesting that /. will say "Microsoft's recent gains raise the prospect that Windows may soon challenge Apache's leadership position," for a 14.2% difference, but when it is the other way around, for example IE and Firefox, Firefox has been challenging IE since the days when the difference was more than 70%.

Re:Interesting

[benjymouse]

I submitted the article. It is a quote from Netcraft. It is not a ./ quote, nor is it mine. RTFA.

Re:Interesting

[jbellows_20]

I gave my statement not so much with regards to you, but rather towards the editors.

Different servers using the same IP address

[Raphael]

And, by what magic of the new HTTP 2.0 protocol are you running two different server software types on the same IP and on the same port?

Simple and no need for magic: have a single IP address and port that runs an accelerating proxy that is just a front-end for a pool of servers. This proxy forwards the requests to the appropriate server depending on the HTTP/1.1 request headers. It can cache some contents (that's the "accelerating" part) and can also filter the requests and provide some defense against some common types of attacks.

Behind the front-end proxy, you may have several boxes running Apache serving static pages, another box running Microsoft IIS for ASP pages, and yet another box running Tomcat or Glassfish for JSP pages. All of these are exposed to the outside world as a single IP address and port, although they may use different host names.

Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[twitter]

IIS already has a pretty dramatic marketshare lead when it comes to the Fortune 1000.

This is the M$ zenith. The seeds M$ sewed back in the 80s and 90s are bearing fruit. All of those "free" copies of Windoze and Office bought the loyalty of millions of clueless MBA corporate wanna-be types. Their unmitigated ignorance and greed is also apparent in other mismanagement. It is only in big dumb companies that technical competence can be so thouroughly overridden by idealog management. Such irrational practices, can turn on a dime. Reality will catch up with these people, despite the size of their companies and it's already happening.

Working for most of the Fortune 1000 is miserable right now - they have their employees by the balls and they know it. Much of their M$ heavy stock funded retirement plans never gained their value back, so these companies are filled with old people who can't retire and are being worked to death. Their management is lining their pockets with bonuses while they fire employees, sell off capital and let the rest go to hell. The Mississippi River bridge collapse was just the beginning of the problems we will soon see. Power grids, plants, telephone networks and other vital infrastructure are all being run down under the stewardship of greedy asswipes who think they are rock stars.

Re:Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[abigor]

Your comment is utterly, absolutely, batshit crazy. Disconnected from reality doesn't even begin to cover it.

Re:Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[ThinkFr33ly]

Or it could be that IIS is a really excellent web server. Either one, really.

Care to explain what, exactly, is "irrational" about using IIS?

Re:Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[Toreo asesino]

You've got to love this Twitter fella. Really, the guy should get published, no?

Re:Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[BlackSnake112]

How is a bridge collapse which was built long before microsoft even existed microsoft's fault? The other infrastructure computer systems are big iron based. Main frame, other big old Unix systems. Maybe some smaller *nix systems for non critical (email, file server) parts. I have never heard of windows server **** being installed in the power company's systems. Same with the phone systems. The main back end important systems are not windows based. The front end desktop and laptops may be windows but not the main servers. Microsoft would love to get their server stuff into the power companies and phone companies. It will not happen any time soon. A complete rewrite and total replacement would have to happen. It is cheaper to replace the old Unix server with a newer, smaller, faster Unix server then to replace the old Unix server and all the software with a windows server(s).

Re:Live by the Dumb, Die by the Dumb.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. Just... wow

Err, Netcraft may be broke in uptime counts:

[Penguinisto]

Yup, it's true. And they all run BSD too. Look a bit further down the list and you'll see Windows battling it out with IRIX (plus a couple of Windows installs in the very high places).

Okay - but there's a problem with this listing being taken as gospel, especially with Windows. If you were running a single Win2k box (see #8 on the list) for more than a month or two without rebooting, you obviously haven't been patching jack shit on it, let alone for over four years straight, so obviously we have something else in play here...

Between clustering and load-balancing, there's little wonder that we see a Windows box claiming four-plus years of continuous uptime (which IMHO is sheer bullshit if that single Win2k site were a single box, as it would've been pwned ages ago).

That, and a quick check of "http://fp002.crayfish.net/" (the Win2k box) shows this:
[{me}@eschaton ~]$ wget http://fp002.crayfish.net/
--08:45:41-- http://fp002.crayfish.net/
=> `index.html'
Resolving fp002.crayfish.net... 210.172.136.46
Connecting to fp002.crayfish.net|210.172.136.46|:80...failed: Connection timed out.
Retrying.

--08:48:54-- http://fp002.crayfish.net/
(try: 2) => `index.html'
Connecting to fp002.crayfish.net|210.172.136.46|:80...

(....long, long wait until eventual timeout...)

-and the domain name "crayfish.net" has no records according to the timeout on firefox as well - for a website that was supposedly still up and running "in the past 7 days".

So, I'm guessing either it's uptime is either being gamed to coincide with sampling, or (more likely) something's broke @ Netcraft.

/P

Re:Err, Netcraft may be broke in uptime counts:

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you were running a single Win2k box (see #8 on the list) for more than a month or two without rebooting, you obviously haven't been patching jack shit on it, let alone for over four years straight, "

this is an ignorant statement, the exact same can be said of linux, BSD and especially Apache and PHP. please find me any 2 month period in linux over the past 4 years that has not had a kernel patch? if there are any such periods they are few and far between.

Re:Err, Netcraft may be broke in uptime counts:

[Penguinisto]

please find me any 2 month period in linux over the past 4 years that has not had a kernel patch? if there are any such periods they are few and far between.

You forget - Linux/BSD kernel patches aren't usually of the big, bad, necessary "oh-shit-we-better-patch-else-we'll-get-pwned" type, unlike, oh, Win2k. I can actually check the release notes and decide whether or not to bother, or simply wait until it affects either security or what I do/want-to-do. Win2k (and even Win2k3 to a large extent) doesn't have that luxury.

Speakin' of ignorance my dear AC, you forget that patching Apache and/or PHP doesn't require a reboot, and as Apache itself is quite stable, it's even rarer that one would require pushing a HUP on the daemon.

Nice try on your part, though... try again?

/P

Don't be complacent; MS have done this before

[AaronLawrence]

MS is good at this game of incrementally taking market share away from competitors. They have been doing it for years. They will match features, add luxuries, push it hard to business types, give it away, offer automated conversion ... whatever they think it takes.

Nobody thought Office could replace WordStar, but MS beavered away at it, adding new features people liked and matching existing features, and now it's a distant memory. Same for Excel. The first versions of windows were jokes, but MS kept working on them and took the desktop over. Nobody used Windows as a server at first, but MS built NT and improved it and now they run the majority of small businesses and many larger ones. They had nothing in the database server market, but they bought SQL Server from Sybase and beavered away at it, and now they run a decent percentage of websites and many businesses. They were late to "the internet" but turned things round, built a browser that was the best for a while (IE5), and a web server that is now a serious contender.

Meanwhile Linux gains at the expense of Unix, and Linux geeks sit complacently back thinking they cannot be assailed. In reality the same forces that MS brough to bear on the desktop apply here: ignorance of alternatives, familiarity, PHBs, marketing, training, and, for the most part, the ability to do a decent job. Add to that the ability to easily integrate existing desktop/small business stuff, like connecting to COM objects, SQL server, .NET, Office, etc, all the stuff that millions of developers are already familiar with.

It makes me nervous to think that Microsoft could take the server off Unix/Linux as well. I don't think it's as far off as some might think. They are learning from Linux/Unix, in that their newer stuff is taking things like "xcopy deployment" and XML for ocnfig quite seriously.

Re:Don't be complacent; MS have done this before

[Jugalator]

I agree, observant people introduced in Microsoft's business (and Linux fans should be, to know where they are, and what they're facing) should see a quite notable change of pace here just the past three years or so. Just look at the heavily scripting-backed Exchange 2007 for example, that is supported by the Windows PowerShell. Sometimes I wonder if the opposition are being too introverted and rather fling dirt at Microsoft, while Microsoft is actually quite extroverted.

Re:Don't be complacent; MS have done this before

[Anonymous Coward]

heh, I think you're mistaken -- Office replaced WordPerfect and 1-2-3. Ditto for most of the rest of your distorted timelines. Ditto for calling Linux development pace 'complacent'. Ditto for slandering non-Win quality. Praising Win's compatibility. Or COM. Or SQL Server vs. other databases. For ignoring Clippy, Bob and MS-Access. For claiming .Net is a good thing. For perceiving server deployment patterns being a Unix/Linux vs. Windows dichotomy when server-space reality is Unix v. Linux v. Win v. OSX v. Appliance v. SOA v. Web 2.0 v... etc.

And your ignoring the steaming pile of poo that is Vista... that's just pricelessly funny.

Its the APIs in General

[Anonymous Coward]

My guess is that it has to do with the tremendous increase in Windows .NET development (not the other way around, that is IIS fueling the API programming). Over the last 2 years I've seen allot on JAVA-only shops go .NET on the Web and Desktop platforms. Visual Studio, .NET, WPF, WWF, and WCF are very compelling, and the confusion over JAVA based presentation (JSP vs TAPESTRY vs JSF and so on) combined with varying degrees of suport have fueled this.

No doubt people will disagree with this but I get this story allot. It was, one, suprising for me to see these JAVA only shops (some biggies) go .NET; and two, having put together projects on both platforms I can see the reasoning makes sense. Productivity is much higher on the VS/.NET side. Call it whatever you want, but I rarely see it go the other way.

(ducking in my trench now)

Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[jellomizer]

LA LA LA LA LA I AM NOT LISTENING.

Wake up people! IIS Lately is just as secure as Apache, Development with .NET is easier and faster then PHP is for a lot of jobs. Installations doesn't require modifying text files.... Sure apache has its plusses and many of them are substantial. But this Excuses and ignoring the facts will only lead to your own disaster. Much like how mainframes died (or at least greatly diminished) over a decade ago. Sure Mainframes are faster and better then PC components but that is not what the people want. Open Source and Apache is doing the same thing, it is putting in stuff that they think they want not the bulk of their users. People want a GUI configuration tool, People want it to be defaultly built in with a full featured server side language. People don't want to compile their installation with a bunch of of cryptic commands for features they do or do not know what it does. People want GUI Application Development software so what they program will go onto the server. Apache and the OSS Community is doing a poor job in offering such services to the people. So in the spirit of freedom that the OSS Community as given them they feel free to use IIS because it gives them what they need. Most people do not have the time or the will to program these changes, most people only like Open Source Applications because it is free IIS comes already with Windows Server so it is fee enough for them. Don't be stupid and make excuses while more and more market-share slips away go an actively improve your product to help keep the market share you have and perhaps influence others to go back to IIS.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Anonymous Coward]

Development with .NET is easier and faster then PHP is for a lot of jobs.

PHP is widely acknowledged to suck, but how is that Apache's fault? PHP runs on many other web servers (including IIS) and many other languages/platforms can be used with Apache (including .NET, with Mono).

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[dave562]

I can't speak for the GP, but I think that he is referring to the application stack, as in LAMP. In that case it isn't so much Apache's fault that PHP has some issues, but the fact that Apache is the main environment for PHP developers causes its name to be sulled by the association.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Anne Thwacks]

PHP is widely acknowledged to suck,

More than that, all /. readers know full well, that PHP is actually very good at sucking while .net is pathetic, even at sucking.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[dave562]

In much the same way, IIS has its name sullied by .ASP and .Net code that is improperly written. Any time an application written for IIS gets cracked, people whine about how insecure IIS is. The reality is that IIS is plenty secure, but if you throw badly written code on there, you can create a vulnerability.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Jack9]

PHP is widely acknowledged to suck

I'm not sure where that sentiment comes from. It's not widely acknowledged, but often repeated.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where that sentiment comes from. It comes from people who have used PHP.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Firehed]

That's because it's PHP apps that tend to suck, not PHP itself. Since it's so easy to learn (especially for people who've used anything C-ish), you'll get all sorts of newbies doing stupid things, like forgetting that you can't trust user input or making insane database requests (like, 'SELECT *' and processing half a terabyte of a database dump).

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Anonymous Coward]

Under Ubuntu 7.04:
apt-get install apache2 php

Done!

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[QuoteMstr]

Roughly, because PHP manages to do less with more.

Two articles:

Experiences of using PHP in Large Websites: from 2002, but the basic PHP philosophy hasn't changed since then (although some specifics have). Oversimplification and pandering to less experienced developers hurts the language as a whole.

PHP in Contrast to Perl. From the table of contents:

• Arguments and return values are extremely inconsistent
• PHP has separate functions for case insensitive operations
• PHP has inconsistent function naming
• PHP has no lexical scope
• PHP has too many functions in the core
• PHP lacks abstraction and takes TIMTOWTDI to bad extremes

It's not that PHP is that bad. VB, COBOL and PL/1 were all much worse. It's that there are better languages out there that people never learn because they learned PHP as "n00bs" (you can almost detect a PHP developer by his use of that word) and are complacent with it.

Incidentally, I think it's a lot more mind-expanding to learn two programming languages than to learn one. I see single-language people all the time confusing possibility with possibility in a particular language, or confusing overall algorithms and data structures with particular idioms from their pet language. It's sad.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Tom]

Installations doesn't require modifying text files.... Ok, you're not the first to write that, but I've got to reply to someone, so it's you.

Show me a shop that goes with IIS because of this and I'll show you a shop with crappy IT managers.

If you are an IT manager worth his payment, you realize that if your admins can't handle a machine on the machine level, then the first time something breaks in a way the GUI doesn't provide a flashy wizard for you will be calling in consultants that take ten times as much per hour as your in-house staff does. If you think of that as responsible management, I think you should be fired.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Mattsson]

IIS comes already with Windows Server so it is fee enough for them. How many corporations or private persons do not have a separate server-installation for their web-server?
If you do not also use your web-server as your domain-server, you still have to buy a whole new server-license to run an IIS, even if the IIS itself is free.
So running a legal web-server using IIS will set you back the cost of a windows server-license, which cost more than my entire server-hardware.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Reaperducer]

Development with .NET is easier and faster then PHP

Too bad neither have a grammar checker.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[NorseGod]

Well, many small businesses do not have any IT managers. They often don't have any IT staff but the most IT savvy guy already on the payroll.

That said, there actually are really many crappy IT managers out there. They may or may not be worth their payment, but if their task is to set up an in-house webserver and they already have a DC running with enough capacy, I would not blame them for using IIS.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[CyDharttha]

I set up a web server for testing a few days ago in VirtualBox using Kubuntu 7.0.4, Apache2, PHP 5, and MySQL 5. I had the testbed up and running in under 2 hours, including server and software installation. I didn't need to edit any configuration files. I installed PHPMyAdmin for a bit of graphical database configuration, then installed and started researching Drupal. A very pleasant experience. I understand that .Net may be easier than PHP, however I do not know this from experience. My platform of choice for development would at the moment be Ruby on Rails. RadRails and Eclipse are great IDEs for development there.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[jellomizer]

Normally this isn't the only factor. Most of the time it is just because they upgraded their servers to Windows 2003 and it came with it so use what came with it if it works good enough... But still if it is a case where the manager like the ability in case where a change needs to be done and no IT Guys is found a GUI front end will give them a fighting chance for what could be a simple fix then doing it threw a text file. Yes some managers are skilled enough to do such a simple task (and some could even do an apache config file too, but with a GUI front end they can get the job done without googling for the answer that may or may not work vs following detail menu options that can get them to the right spot.

Also IT Admins may not be specialized in being Web Administrators the website may be mostly or partially static and simple and they may not know Apache and those config files can take some time (which cost money) to get right, and if you change versions the Config Files need to be partially relearned again or if you use a different Distribution of Linux then there is a chance those config files are completely different.

Your argument is not a good one you are using a "proof by intimidation" by arguing a reason by saying it is stupid. Like how HP though these two guys who had the first names of Steve were stupid for thinking that the average consumer would want a small low end personal computer.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[jellomizer]

Of course you need it configured with SSL running, and aliased domains, php needs to be configured to run with MySQL, you want user home directories installed...

apt-get it good for only getting the app installed and working but if you are running web site sometimes you need more then the default install.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[__aanonl8035]

I want to first state that I value your comment on this board. It is well thought out and provides constructive, informative links. But I do dispute the overall message that PHP manages to do less with more.

I just want to comment on one of the articles you have linked, Experiences of using PHP in Large Websites:
"Oversimplification and pandering to less experienced developers hurts the language as a whole."

I do not find any of its examples convincing. Most of the examples are just decisions, PHP could have done it like PERL, or they could have done it like JAVA, or hey... they could do it like PHP does.

For example, quoting from the article about global variables...

The rationale for designing the language in this way was that it would prevent inadvertent changing of global variables. This strikes me as an extremely good example of how designing the language for surface simplicity in fact leads to a great deal of underlying complexity.

This just goes on about something he doesn't like. The reason, it is too complex? Even though it attempts to address a valid issue of inadvertently changing a global variable? PHP can't win!

The list of gotchas that are in the article are just so amazingly simple to understand that only a "noob" programmer would fall into the mistakes.

I would like to posit my own theory about the general complaints levied at PHP. I believe there is a trait that is inherent in programmers where they believe they are brilliant, where they believe they can figure anything out, and that they are superior to most people because they can figure things out. (figure out very difficult to understand things). PHP encroaches upon their holy domain due to its popularity, so they retreat back to their more obscure, more elite language, with its syntactical purity.

In the end, it is all subjective.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[QuoteMstr]

Likewise, I enjoy a good discussion that doesn't devolve into a flamewar.

Let's establish some objective benchmarks for general-purpose programming languages. Can we agree that it's better for a language to be consistent than not? That it's better to be expressive (as opposed to requiring verbose constructs for simple ideas)? Can we agree that separating code into separate namespaces and modules is a fundamentally good idea? Can we say that "spooky action at a distance" is generally bad? Of course, we should include the each with which a language is learned there too.

A language can't optimize for all these at once, so there's always a tradeoff. Perl trades virtually everything else for expressiveness. Java focuses on consistency. Python, a balance of consistency and expressiveness that you could call aesthetic.

PHP's focus is on being as easy as possible to pick up for the inexperienced programmer who just wants to get his personal task done without having to learn too much about the language.

Consider two animals: animal A reproduces by spawning, and easily has 10,000 offspring. Let's say 0.01% of these offspring go on to reproduce, for an average of 10 offspring per animal A. Now consider an animal B that rears 3 offspring, 90% of which survive to have offspring of their own. In the same niche, animal A will have a huge reproductive advantage over animal B, and animal A will drive B out of its niche in a few generations, ignoring other considerations.

Despite each B being better (say, more intelligent, stronger, faster, etc.), the niche A and B are competing in doesn't require the animal to be better. A is better off, since it devotes its resources to reproducing faster instead of being better individually. If that niche were more demanding, B might be better off.

Now translate that idea into programming language terms. PHP is very easy to pick up for the "n00b", giving it a huge reproductive advantage over other languages. Since PHP is so easy to pick up for mediocre programmers, the typical programmer using PHP will be mediocre. It's not that good people don't use PHP, but that these good people are vastly outnumbered.

Yet PHP is astoundingly successful. What does that tell us?

Most web programming is not hard. The niche is not demanding. PHP, the meme, is better off sacrificing being a "good" language so it can spread, and even in its weakened form, it's more than up for the task. PHP is a more fit language for web programming in an overall sense, if not an individual one.

I'm not arguing that the language designers consciously designed it that way, by the way. I'm merely arguing that that's how it happened. When I say that PHP "wants" this or that, I'm just drawing a metaphor.

Other programming niches, by the way, are more demanding. You'd be hard-pressed to find a language like PHP in, say, compiler-writing. There, the task is harder, so the language, and thus the programmers, are hardier. "Better" languages are more fit for these more demanding niches.

We don't look down on PHP because we secretly desire to be esoteric code-wizards. Instead, we look down on PHP because it's like using a rock to pound in a nail: there are objectively better ways to do what it does, and people who use PHP almost universally use it only out of ignorance.

We try to combat ignorance, but when the people you attempt to educate do nothing but resist new notions, the only response that's left is pity.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[jez9999]

Wake up people! IIS Lately is just as secure as Apache, Development with .NET is easier and faster then PHP...

I've got a question for you, and everyone, really.

Do you want operating systems and development software to be forever dominated by a single corporation that charges you what they want for each, even if their stuff is a bit better? I mean, fundamentally, that's what pisses me off. Are we really going to still have a vast number of electronic devices running, and having stuff developed for, Microsoft Corporation software, in 100 years' time? With MS's stubborn maintenance of position in the computing indistry, it's starting to seem that way. I find it fucking annoying.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Anonymous Coward]

It comes from people who have NOT used PHP.

Fixed that for you.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[CyDharttha]

PHP did not need to be configured to work with MySQL in my apt-get'd install. It just worked (TM) :) I was up and running with a testbed server in no time.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Tom]

Normally this isn't the only factor. Most of the time it is just because they upgraded their servers to Windows 2003 and it came with it so use what came with it if it works good enough... I'll accept that. I can also accept the reason that if you are a 100% MS shop, it makes sense to run your website on MS software as well.

But still if it is a case where the manager like the ability in case where a change needs to be done and no IT Guys is found a GUI front end will give them a fighting chance for what could be a simple fix then doing it threw a text file. If your site is so important that you can't wait for an IT guy to come in, then your web site is too important for any non-admin to touch it. Instead of throwing a GUI at someone who might fix the site, but who might also break it much worse than it currently is, you either need to realize that it can wait, or you put your IT staff on call duty.

Yes, I have run sites where the life of the company did depend on the site being up and running 24/7 and every downtime could be measured in thousands of bucks.

Also IT Admins may not be specialized in being Web Administrators the website may be mostly or partially static and simple and they may not know Apache and those config files can take some time (which cost money) to get right, and if you change versions the Config Files need to be partially relearned again or if you use a different Distribution of Linux then there is a chance those config files are completely different. That's nonsense. The only time I had to re-learn anything about Apache's config that took more than 5 minutes was the switch to Apache 2. I've also not seen any differences in the config files, but maybe that's because my sub-set of distributions I've seen is limited (Debian, SuSE and Redhat). And if your admin can't deal with a simple, well-documented plain-text file, then whatever you are paying him is too much.

Though I understand lots of shops are more lax about these things. See my original post: Crappy management. If I were the CEO, I'd judge the competence of my IT chief on whether or not he lets me play around with an important server when I visit the data center. If he does, he's more interested in politics than his machines and he can take those ambitions somewhere else.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[jellomizer]

My answer is no I don't want it, I am a big supporter of Cross Platform development when possible if not possible try to make it as easily portable as possible. But if Open Source People on the whole (There will be exceptions, there are good and bad but the general trend shows....) tend to get blind sided by the technology and not focus on what the users want. It is easy to state company X is evil, or just ignoring features people want. There is a cost staying with propriety software but if open source doesn't do the job then the the cost of open source it greater in the long run then the cost of a future large migration project.

Re:Close your eyes and plug your ears.

[Ben Hutchings]

Actually there's a "Web Edition" of Windows 2003 with some server capabilities removed and a lower licence fee; they quote a standard price of $399.

Mod Up the above

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I don't see how most machines can run for that long unless you ignore security but anyway the post above about Linux and netcraft counting explains why you don't see more linux listed.

Re:Mod Up the above

[ivan256]

Personally I don't see how most machines can run for that long unless you ignore security

If you chose the right OS, and perhaps a firewall, remote kernel exploits are practically non-existent, so you don't need to re-boot (or even bring your site down) to install patches.

taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[xeno]

Even accounting for the GoDaddy domain-parking nonsense, there's not much to these numbers. An IIS server is not equal to an Apache server in any way, shape or form. It would be like saying there are more IIS bicycles on the road than Apache locomotives, so therefore IIS is more important to the transport of people or goods. It's demonstrably bunk. While quantitative evidence is out there regarding applications and numbers of users per server, I think the following anecdotal bit sums it up nicely.

In a very large quasi-governmental organization, we have a major application that runs on a handful of Oracle systems and serves double-digit thousands of people with acceptable performance over the last half dozen years. There is an ill-thought-out project underway (a year into development) to replace this with a steaming pile of .NET. And it's a BIG pile.

How big? Follow me on this one: First they modeled the .NET application on the old client-server app, but the network chatter was 20x the capacity of the network because the MS-trained app architects could not wrap their heads around the idea of a constrained WAN. What used to be a small record lookup and update of about 300k over the wire turned into more than 6MB of inter-domain line noise.

Then they decided that WAN applications must mean that we wanted a web application (how silly of us), and they re-wrote it as a web app. Not understanding that a significant amount of those users are off-line and synchronize only once a day, the connection/session limits were quickly saturated even before many users complained that they simply could not connect.

The third solution proposed by Microsoft consultants and one of the largest Indian development houses? Install IIS on every remote user's laptop, and have SQL Server synchronize in the background so that the newly web-ified application can operate offline. Let me clarify that: For these thousands of remote roaming workers in the field, many with a public IP, there is one copy if IIS PER USER for a major MS application. And while every time this comes up the Indian developers mutter under their breath things so foul I didn't think you could say them in Hindi, the MS-employed wonks ...BLINK... BLINK... don't seem to recognize there's even an issue.

So the discrepancy is not that IIS is "gaining" on Apache, but that IIS is being dumped out in the street in every cereal box and bubblegum wrapper as part of the .NET mess for purposes it's clearly incapable of serving and that even Apache would be no good for . Just my subjective opinion, but I don't think anyone would ever do this with Apache. The result is that a single project -- an abject failure of a bad design from every meaningful metric, and the willful ignorance of user requirements in favor of vendor fantasies -- shows up on a webserver market share survey as a several-thousand-instance win for MS. By all indication from MS consultants, this is not a unique event.

In the immortal words of Stan Lee: 'Nuff said.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[dm0527]

First they modeled the .NET application on the old client-server app, but the network chatter was 20x the capacity of the network because the MS-trained app architects could not wrap their heads around the idea of a constrained WAN

...

So, because you had poor engineers and a poorly implemented solution, the technology sucks? How do you rationally reach that conclusion when you admit in your own argument that the solution was poorly engineered? Shouldn't you be blaming the engineers / consultants rather than the technology used? I guarantee there are similar examples of poorly implemented solutions based around apache.

If you're going to be spouting off about how IIS is a bicycle and apache is a locomotive, perhaps you could give us examples of equally implemented solutions that compare performance. Don't cop out that they had "Microsoft consultants" either, since the majority of /. users (and from your arguments, you particularly) consider every person connected to Microsoft to be an especially inept Satan incarnate.

I suppose at least you qualified this as your "subjective opinion"...but still

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Blakey Rat]

An IIS server is not equal to an Apache server in any way, shape or form. It would be like saying there are more IIS bicycles on the road than Apache locomotives, so therefore IIS is more important to the transport of people or goods.

Let's take a look at your evidence:

First they modeled the .NET application on the old client-server app, but the network chatter was 20x the capacity of the network because the MS-trained app architects could not wrap their heads around the idea of a constrained WAN. What used to be a small record lookup and update of about 300k over the wire turned into more than 6MB of inter-domain line noise.

And this says what, exactly, about IIS?

1) Crappy programmers exist in every language. I've seen crappy C++ programs, does that mean C++ is a bad language?
2) The .net module in IIS is entirely optional, so even if you ignore point one, this still says nothing about the performance of IIS but only the performance of IIS. (Nobody's going to declare Apache a crappy webserver because Ruby On Rails is slow; you have to give the same benefit to IIS.)

Then they decided that WAN applications must mean that we wanted a web application (how silly of us), and they re-wrote it as a web app.

And this has what to do with IIS?

Not understanding that a significant amount of those users are off-line and synchronize only once a day, the connection/session limits were quickly saturated even before many users complained that they simply could not connect.

Uh, duh? Why would users complain about not being able to connect while they were able to connect? Oh: and it has nothing to do with IIS.

The third solution proposed by Microsoft consultants and one of the largest Indian development houses? Install IIS on every remote user's laptop, and have SQL Server synchronize in the background so that the newly web-ified application can operate offline. Let me clarify that: For these thousands of remote roaming workers in the field, many with a public IP, there is one copy if IIS PER USER for a major MS application. And while every time this comes up the Indian developers mutter under their breath things so foul I didn't think you could say them in Hindi, the MS-employed wonks ...BLINK... BLINK... don't seem to recognize there's even an issue.

I don't even think I understand what the hell you're talking about. However, I'm pretty sure it says nothing at all about the quality of IIS. ...BLINK... BLINK... indeed.

So the discrepancy is not that IIS is "gaining" on Apache, but that IIS is being dumped out in the street in every cereal box and bubblegum wrapper as part of the .NET mess for purposes it's clearly incapable of serving and that even Apache would be no good for .

Saved me some work here: You've admitted you're not even comparing IIS with Apache at this point. What does this have to say about IIS? Well, you said it yourself: Nothing. Even Apache would have failed in the fact of such incompetent developers.

Just my subjective opinion, but I don't think anyone would ever do this with Apache.

And that says what about the quality of IIS? Nothing.

The result is that a single project -- an abject failure of a bad design from every meaningful metric, and the willful ignorance of user requirements in favor of vendor fantasies -- shows up on a webserver market share survey as a several-thousand-instance win for MS.

No it doesn't. This study only counts active, stable web servers on the actual Internet, not copies installed on a laptop for use on a WAN.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Blakey Rat]

2) The .net module in IIS is entirely optional, so even if you ignore point one, this still says nothing about the performance of IIS but only the performance of IIS. (Nobody's going to declare Apache a crappy webserver because Ruby On Rails is slow; you have to give the same benefit to IIS.)

This is supposed to read "this still says nothing about the performance of IIS but only the performance of .net." Sorry, brainfart typo.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[xeno]

If, as you say, "I don't even think I understand what the hell you're talking about," then what good can come of putting your fingers on the keyboard? If you'd paused for a moment of thought before posting this knee-jerk Microsoft apologist tripe, you would see I'm not criticizing IIS directly -- only how it's used, and how that affects measurements of market share (which is the topic of TFA, if you had only read it).

Your statement "This study only counts active, stable web servers on the actual Internet, not copies installed on a laptop for use on a WAN" belies your misunderstanding. These aren't hidden copies. A great majority of these remote single-user systems look to all the world to be public webservers, with public entry pages, with major applications behind them. Netcraft can't distinguish between these empty-calorie 1-user webservers and, say, the front end for a major e-commerce site.

The experience regarding the MS consulting architects (the story you blew thru) indicates that this is not an anomaly; that it's becoming quite common for massive numbers of low-end poorly-designed but publicly-exposed systems to have IIS thrown into the mix. In this context, through no fault of the quality of IIS, saying that IIS is "gaining market share" because of server numbers is meaningless.

Quite separately, I'm of the personal opinion that IIS is crap.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Blakey Rat]

Wow, you must be fun at parties.

If, as you say, "I don't even think I understand what the hell you're talking about," then what good can come of putting your fingers on the keyboard?

I got the rest, it was just that one paragraph that eluded me.

If you'd paused for a moment of thought before posting this knee-jerk Microsoft apologist tripe, you would see I'm not criticizing IIS directly -- only how it's used, and how that affects measurements of market share (which is the topic of TFA, if you had only read it).

Ok, but you also in the same posting admit that Apache couldn't stand up to the same abuses as IIS, and you offered no reason to believe Apache isn't prone to the same crappy product development as affected your IIS install. All you did is tell an anecdote about bad developers.

Quite separately, I'm of the personal opinion that IIS is crap.

Do you have any reasons for your belief, other than blind zealotry and anecdotes about developers?

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Anonymous Coward]

...the Indian developers mutter under their breath things so foul I didn't think you could say them in Hindi...

My Indian friends back in college would be quick to disabuse this notion. Think: thousands of years of language history. English is just a kid by comparison.

I can't count the number of times where Ronnie (Rohinton?) would swear, Anir would laugh, and Bharat would blush. Translations usually mixed two or more of species, hygiene, indian geography, anatomy, and enough variations on to nature of human stupidity to rival the (urban legend of) eskimos' words for snow.

As for the rest of this thread: don't feed the trolls. You're arguing against someone that seems to be reaching for any excuse to disagree with or discredit you.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scram.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Stu Charlton]

While the bandwidth consumption of this app seems disgraceful, I note that a disconnected web architecture is becoming commonplace. Many development environments embed a small web server to serve up documentation; instead of IIS, I've seen Apache Tomcat installed on desktops; and Google Gears provides true offline browser-side state thru an embedded SQLLite database.

Synchronizing SQL Server per desktop, assuming Personal edition, is a fairly modest footprint, though has some ugly licensing implications.

I would also note that it's pretty unlikely that NetCraft is surveying the domains of part-time connected clients, even if they are running IIS. Sure, the parked GoDaddy domains are a different story.

Anyway, not an MS shill, I work for a competitor. I think your rant is interesting but likely unrelated to the NetCraft survey.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[dbIII]

And this has what to do with IIS?

The end result was a lot of copies of IIS - that seemed fairly obvious after reading the entire comment. I suggest ignore attempts to debunk locomotive comparisons that are wild illustrations that are not really relevant and consider the comment as a whole.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's only talking about how the Netcraft numbers could be useless. That's his point.

Re:taking a go-kart to Daytona?

[Blakey Rat]

And my point is that they could be equally useless because of some similar botched project that was botched using Apache instead of botched using IIS. I'm not buying his premise that botched projects ONLY happen with IIS and never any other web server, I think that's utter bunk. I've seen terrible projects made with all kinds of technology.

The rest of the point is a long rant about one specific project that says nothing about IIS or Apache in general.

Re:Nope, worse in active domains.

[Dog-Cow]

I agree. Using M$ as anything other a reference to a BASIC string variable demonstrates that the poster is retarded, idiotic, sub-human and should be put out of our misery.

It's not about IIS vs Apache!!!!

[had3z]

It's about linux versus windows. while is may do a good job, perhaps better than apache, you'll still have to reboot to get the latest upgrade, and to clear the occasional ram bloating.

Re:It's not about IIS vs Apache!!!!

[dave420]

No, you don't. You restart the service, either from the command-line or from services.msc. Or from the GUI. Or remotely. Your choice. Rebooting isn't required. As for ram bloating? Try again. That doesn't happen with IIS6 or 7.

The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Qbertino]

Apache is neat. Very neat.
PHP is neat. Very neat.
Compared to any other SSI solution that is.

...etc. ...

There is but one problem. The world and especially the web and it's technologies is moving along at a breathtaking pace. Apache is neat, but it's style of configuration is nearly 10 years old from back when XML was considered the hottest thing since sliced bread.
Why isn't there a zero-fuss web interface backend built into Apache that enables me to configure anything I want with 3 clicks of a mouse (with a backend deactivation option of course). Why isn't there a version of PHP with a MySQL driven persistance layer and SQL-free serialisation built right into it?
How come a little bit of marketing, screencasts and a website which, for once, doesn't look like shit, and suddenly people think Rails is the holy grail of webdeving? Rails and the hip project hype they kicked off is a very good thing, but it shouldn't stop just there.

Don't get me wrong. I'm convinced that Microsoft, in terms of available software technology, is an incarnation of evil and should be avoided at all costs unless there is a solid reason not to. 'Client wants Exchange' could be one. But we have to be realistic about this. It takes only a handfull of people at MS with 2 or more braincells, freshly assigned decision power and half a billion out of Microsofts piggybank to build an entire webstack that blows any OSS solution (Zope, Rails, Django and whatnot included) out of the water and into next wednesday, technology wise. Even the most advanced OSS webstack today has superfluos installation fuss one has to go through that should disapear ASAP. There is a lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net. Look at the countless Linux people flocking to Mac OS X to see what I mean.

IIS, .Net and whatever from MS not sucking to much is a reaction to the pressure the feel from OSS. They may be reacting to this, thus the rise in IIS hits.

Then again, MS bought Godaddy just to raise their level of IIS installs by a few percent, and LAMP machines are extremely Multi-Domain friendly. This Necraft study might just be reflecting this. And I have no doubt that should Apache drop to a real 30%, they'd get their shit together and start building a full integrated OSS webstack that picks up where Zope ends. And not only halfway there. I hope so anyway.

My 2 Eurocents.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[joost]

You make very good points. Apache should get it's shit together and become more user friendly. Fast. I find configuring Apache 2.2 a pain and I know most configuration options by heart!

I have been more than happy with LiteSpeed as a web server. Fast PHP built-in, easy web interface, and the server is lightning fast. If you're tired of Apache I suggest you give it a try. Not free as in speech though (only as in beer) which I find not problematic.

PHP and a DB persistence layer should get moving too. The standard php-mysql is just not going to cut it. It doesn't even support prepared statements. If anything is behind Rails' success, this is.

I fear that Apache+PHP have become inert and complacent with their own succes. Which they have, LAMP is still a rock solid platform to deploy apps on. But in tomorrow's world LAMP will become obsolete quickly if it doesn't evolve.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Anonymous Coward]

Apache is a rock solid web server, but administration sucks as well. And I'm not referring to the fact that you have to edit half-way-xml files. No, try to use multiple modules such as rewrite, usertracking, headers etc. and you realize that every d*** module has it own set of "variables" - which are consistently *not* called the same, even though they fill the same function. PHP, frankly, is a POS. Inconsistent, bug-ridden, exploit-rich, terrible release history (backwards breaking changes), half-baked OO, half-baked exception handling, strange (very!) alias semantics, scalability problems (scale-out, project size, team size). I suspect PHPs demise (and the disappointment with PHP) is the main driver of defections to Rails and ASP.NET. While everyone in the FOSS community have contratulated eachother on the cool acronym LAMP, the Microsoft has steamed on. IIS has had its metabase configuration stored in *real* xml files since IIS6 (released with Windows Server 2003). It combines easy GUI administration with scriptability. It is also rock solid. ASP.NET with it ease of development, vast built-in feature array and coarse grained components offers supreme productivity compared to PHP. Only Rails can really rival MS here. (but LAMR is not a good acronym so Railers often go with lightppd/mongrel).

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Anonymous Coward]

PHP is neat. Very neat.

No it is not. Please stop spreading the lie that OSS/Apache web programming is synonymous with PHP, there are infinitely better choices out there.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[ZekeSpeak]

I find configuring Apache 2.2 a pain and I know most configuration options by heart! I actually find it easier to configure than 1.x

PHP and a DB persistence layer should get moving too. The standard php-mysql is just not going to cut it. It doesn't even support prepared statements. If anything is behind Rails' success, this is. I use apache/perl/postgresql. It precompiles all the perl modules and precompiles perl scripts. Perl::DBI handles persistent database connections and prepared statements.
If the tools aren't adequate there's always other tools out there to use.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Ambassador Kosh]

I definitely don't agree with you about zope. I have seen nothing under any platform that can hold a candle to the zope security system. I have tried to work with other "superior" systems and they always ended up taking more time and losing a lot of features that are just part of zope. However until you have actually worked with a more secure system you won't understand how useful it is. Every request running under its own security credentials, every function, object, attribute etc touched is fully security checked. That means if you have a code screwup that would someone try to hand someone information they should not have the system will still not allow it.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Qbertino]

I definitely don't agree with you about zope.

I don't see any disagreement here. I consider Zope the measure for any other web application solution of today. Back in 1999 it had what Rails and other can only hope to have in a few years to come. It was literally 10 years ahead of it's time and it still sets the bar. It's way ahead of anything else I know and I do web-developement for a living. It's only for it's ugly backend, the lack of a flashy website and some witty screencasts that it didn't pick up as much hype as Rails did 2 years ago.
Goes to show that marketing is more important for OSS projects that developers care to realize.

Re:The lure of a truely zero-fuss .Net

[Anonymous Coward]

You make some cogent points, particularly about the need for things to be "zero-fuss," but I do take issue with one point you raised: "IIS... not sucking [too] much..."

Microsoft has for some time strived to make their developer tools fairly accessible and relatively up to date. That's the developer's attraction to COOL (or DevelopX or NET, or whatever they're calling it this year). It's Java without the arcane Sun stupidity and bizarre legacy coding. However, that has no bearing on the quality of IIS which is still a complete pile of crap. IIS can't be made production-ready without an enormous amount of deep voodoo mostly involving hand-editing its (XML!) configuration file. Even then, it's pretty fragile as application servers go. Certainly IIS doesn't meet any requirement of "zero-fuss." If anything, it takes a tremendous fuss to deploy IIS as anything more complex than a domain parking server.

Screw IIS

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw IIS. It is a piece of crap. Long live Apache!

Microsoft Gaming Netcraft

[mpapet]

I don't know jack about the methodology Netcraft uses nor do they make it clear. The "top developers" attributes Google as the big winner, but there's no documentation on those stats either.

This page is pretty strange. http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/requested.html The site blink.nu is a microsoft press release machine of some kind and has ~1.6 times the number of queries of the next nearest site. Odd to say the least.

Conjecture aside, what's happening is all kinds of GPL(ish) projects are growing and the stats are being positioned as a loss for Apache. This is very similar to how NPD intellect royally screws Apple in favor of Microsoft by aggregating all PC's with Microsoft's OS against Apple. Disaggregate the numbers by vendor and you find Apple does extremely well in consumer segments.

Re:Microsoft Gaming Netcraft

[Macthorpe]

So Netcraft doesn't tell you how they generate their stats, Netcraft chooses strange ways of grouping products, and Netcraft polls one site 1.6 times more than the next site (conveniently ignoring the fact that the next site is an Apache server and is polled almost twice as much as the next site on the list)... therefore Microsoft is gaming Netcraft.

I'd argue with you but you'd drag me down to your level and beat me with experience.

Oy jesus....

[Anonymous Coward]

I read the slashdot comments for laughs and never comment but most of you are permanently stuck in 1997. Really.

Keep counting the uptime on that server chucked under your bed!

Name-based virtual hosting

[j0hn7r0n]

And, by what magic of the new HTTP 2.0 protocol are you running two different server software types on the same IP and on the same port? Is there a spec for HTTP 2.0? I've never even heard of 2.0, and I can't find anything about it on the W3C's website.

Anyways, the Apache documentation explains how name-based virtual hosting uses an "Host" header in the HTTP request to determine which website to host. As long as "HTTP 2.0" still uses this header, then it shouldn't be a problem.

For the lazy:

IP-based virtual hosts use the IP address of the connection to determine the correct virtual host to serve. Therefore you need to have a separate IP address for each host. With name-based virtual hosting, the server relies on the client to report the hostname as part of the HTTP headers. Using this technique, many different hosts can share the same IP address.

- http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/vhosts/name-based .html

"Evolution"

[k-zed]

IIS instead of Apache, Windows (or even that shiny glittery Mac thing) instead of UNIX, GUI instead of the CLI, .NET instead of Lisp for chrissakes.

"WEB 2.0" and "AJAX" instead of... content.

The world is going in all the wrong directions. Modern-day IT is the most depressing line of work there is.

Re:"Evolution"

[Vitaliy]

Apple OS X is UNIX that runs the same services (Apache, MySQL, and PHP if you like). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_UNIX_Specifica tion

Re:"Evolution"

[dave420]

Nice straw man argument! Did it take you a while to come up with, or did you get some help?

IIS7 is faster than any Apache out there. Or maybe what a web server does is less important to you than who wrote it?

Well that explains a lot

[erroneus]

As I have been following spam trends, I have noticed increasingly that a lot of spam is originating from compromised boxes within the US at hosting facilities. Some of these compromised boxes are LAMP boxes, but the majority of them are Windows boxes I have been finding. (sources from outside the US are somewhat irrelevant to me since I set up spamassassin rules that ranks spam from outside the US well above the minimum score... the vast majority of actual spam is coming from connections outside of the US even if the originators are still from the U.S.)

So as we see this increase in Windows servers on the net, I fear we'll see an increase in incidents of machines compromised for bot membership and on and on.

I'm *NOT* saying that Linux is more secure in this regard. As mentioned above, some compromised boxes are, in fact, LAMP boxes. I'm saying that Windows boxes are an easier target and are targeted more often and compromised successfully quite often with automated measures since they are all typically configured the same ways with the same directory structures, software patches and updates etc. (With the variety of Linux distros out there, there is far less incident of homogeny in system configuration which at the very least slows down automated procedures for compromises and take-overs.)

In any case, I think there's a distinction to be noted in that more frequently targeted doesn't mean less secure. (I hope G.W.Bush isn't reading this...) But given that Linux and Windows security is equal (indulge me), what does it mean when Windows is targeted more often?

banner spoofing

[bl8n8r]

A lot of people spoof the apache banner with a IIS banner. It's a pretty old trick and doesn't fake out savvy crackers than can fingerprint the ip stack, but makes people feel better.

In reality, I find it very hard to believe that anyone would *want* to run IIS. Vendor lockin aside, if your running IIS, you're asking to be cracked. Windows security is laughable at best, and if you've built marble empires on top of that foundation, you need to re-assess the cost and value of your assets.

Re:banner spoofing

[dave420]

You should see the number of vulnerabilities for Apache vs. IIS! Here's a hit: Apache has more, IIS has none. Oh, and IIS7 is faster than Apache. Even the Zend team recommends people use IIS over Apache.

Next!

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[razorh]

Since when does Apache == Linux?

HELP! My LAMP is now LLPR!

[Jeff Carr]

Help me! Seriously, I need a new technology.

I like LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) as much as the next want-to-be web developer out there.

Started with FAMP (FreeBSD), to LAMP, to LAPP (PostgreSQL)...

But now I'm ridiculously on LLPR! (Linux, Lighttpd, PostgreSQL, Ruby)

Can someone please develop something with a vowel?!?

Re:HELP! My LAMP is now LLPR!

[bakes]

But now I'm ridiculously on LLPR! (Linux, Lighttpd, PostgreSQL, Ruby)

Can someone please develop something with a vowel?!? There are rumours of an 'Enhanced Lighttpd' in the works. So now you can be a LEPR.

Re:HELP! My LAMP is now LLPR!

[Vomibra]

But now I'm ridiculously on LLPR! (Linux, Lighttpd, PostgreSQL, Ruby)

Can someone please develop something with a vowel?!?

How about something ending in RPLL?

Re:HELP! My LAMP is now LLPR!

[Michael Wardle]

FreeBSD + Lighty + PostgreSQL + Ruby = FLPR = "Flipper"?

Re:HELP! My LAMP is now LLPR!

[Jeff Carr]

Oh, excellent! That's it, I'm going back to FreeBSD.br
Take that Netcraft! FreeBSD is part of a new catchy accronym, Corporate execs all over the world will be flocking to it!

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'L' in LAMP "==" Linux.

money$=dumb?

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight, people making money and who have MBAs are dumb ... Fortune 1000 companies are evil ...

Thanks Trotsky; that was helpful.

well i guess so

[indy_Muad'Dib]

i guess going from 1% market share to 1.01% would be a gain....

Security, ease of use

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Is there any compelling reason _not_ to use apache?! o.O"

Security, for one.
Since MS released IIS6 in 2003, it's had a nearly perfect security record, much better than Apache's record since 2003.
IIS6 security record since 2003
3 flaws, none serious, all patched

Apache 2's security record since 2003
34 flaws, 3% are serious, 9% are unpatched, and 3% only partially fixed

That said, I'd guess that most that choose IIS over Apache do it for reasons of ease of use.

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[Macthorpe]

Our anonymous friend has answered for me - look up what 'LAMP' means.

ASP.NET

[noldrin]

from the web hosting my company, I've seen a sharp increase in people doing ASP.NET stuff, although it's often laughable uses. Generally.. people who run servers themsevlves use Apache, people who resell use IIS, at least these days. Apache could use a new killer app.

Subsection A, Paragraph B....

[encoderer]

Subsection A, Paragraph B clearly states that boat analogies must be used in lieu of car analogies on all Microsoft vs. OSS stories. We just don't have the technology to construct a metaphorical car powerful enough to overcome the figurative bullshit.

More potential threats to Apache...

[Linker3000]

...according to this Netcraft report:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http:/ /www.ebuyer.com

Re:More potential threats to Apache...

[justkeeper]

They shouldn't be a threat since IIS doesn't run on AmigaOS...

Thats becuase Apache has no GUI.

[tuaris]

The reason is simple, IIS has a fully integrated and usable GUI to configure the server. As a server administrator, I do not want to bother dropping to a console and editing a text file. Even though (after some time) the Apache configuration files are simple to understand. When you need to do something quick, and you don't have time to stop, think, or plan, digging through a bunch of text files just doesn't cut it.

This is my only gripe with Apache, but I have to live with it since I would never touch IIS. MacOS X has a very good well integrated Apache configuration GUI, so it's not impossible to do it. I think the problem is the die hard console/text fanatics don't want to do it. I wish they would "get a clue", it's time to move on.

Webmin doesn't count, it's a web based GUI. Although it served me well, it's just too slow to use and at times can be very cryptic. Nothing can beat the power and speed of a native application.

Jebus Christ

[Dark_MadMax666]

I cant believe people are complaining about IIS "lack" of searchable and scriptable config files. All options from gui (and some more) in IIS are fulle scriptable and viewable as text. RTFM.

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[VJ42]

However, it's also perfectly possible to run WAMP. Apache!=Linux, even though Linux is the most common platform to run it on.

empty sites?

[Tom]

I really wonder how many empty sites, i.e. sites which only serve one page, or redirect to another site, or are parked, etc, etc, are among those serveys, and if Netcraft shouldn't seriously consider taking that into account?

I mean, I can easily register 1000 domains for 1000,- and put them all up on the same (Apache) server. I'm sure MS has little trouble doing the same with a couple million sites. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, they own a bunch of companies that do little than park domains.

Re:empty sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, I can easily register 1000 domains for 1000,-

Thousand domains for just one thousand comma dash? Wow, that's inexpensive. BTW, is that comma dash official currency here on Slashdot?

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[Heembo]

For that matter there is also SAMP (http://hell.jedicoder.net/?p=62) - dang, PHP screams on a multi-million-dollar enterprise SUN server! WHOO HO!

Are these...

[kc2keo]

charts really that accurate anyway? If IIS does get closer to the Apache market share personally I do not really care. I run 3 low traffic Apache servers on 3 of my machines. They work for me. They've been reliable too. And do not tell me that I did not RTFA. I read it. Fuck off. NO THIS IS NOT FUD. ITS ELMER FUD.

Not actually a "web server", many of these are

[unity100]

small corporations/businesses who have been naturally building all their infrastructure on microsoft stuff eventually set up "web sites". they dont go shared hosting, they generally do not understand it, and if they understand they dont trust it, they have a small it section and hence naturally, IIS is the choice, to set up a web presence by their own, as all their tech, knowledge and it people are microsoft certificated. they put a box reaching out to net and put iis on it. we are seeing many of these around here - web sites that even do not receive 5-10 unique visitors a month except for search engine bots. these do not qualify as "web sites" methinks, and they definitely do not qualify as "web servers".

Or more likely many servers are spoofing their id

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a recent article about how to spoof both operating system and web server signatures to fool attackers. I wouldn't be surprised at all if many of those "IIS" servers were actually BSD or Linux or whatever machines running Apache.

SBS

[Anonymous Coward]

SBS 2003, sneaking in the backdoor.

linux sleeping.

What I like about open-source in general is that..

[Larry_Dillon]

I find it easier to fix when things go wrong.
I find M$ to be "superficially easy," meaning that click, click, it probably works, but when something doesn't work as advertised/expected you generally screwed (or you re-install, which isn't always an option).

I find that a lot of commercial software promises much more than it delivers. In open source, I find that the claims are usually on par with reality (not having a profit motive to "overstate" capabilities/maturity).

I find doing advanced/complex thing much easier from a command line. When you click a GUI button, you have little idea what it's REALLY doing. And if I want to duplicate a configuration (or send it to a friend), sending off a config file to is so easy, or backing up a configuration. I find it very difficult to "wonder through the GUI maze" and remember every button that was clicked. In Linux, I make a .bak for the config and diff it later.

I also get the feeling that many Windows users THINK they are admins because they know how to click a button! At the command prompt, there's not much pretending.

I can remember struggling with the command prompt years ago, but once you learn the command prompt, GUI's are for the amatures (and entertainment applications) but not for server configuration. (no offense to anyone)

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[dave420]

What about IIS7? Faster than Apache, just as modular, easier to install and configure. It's even the recommended server for PHP.

Just dumb

[dedazo]

and it's already happening.

Everyone who goes and reads that list should definitely read the first comment.

Working for most of the Fortune 1000 is miserable right now

If you have absolutely no idea whatsoever what working for a Fortune 1000 is like (if that even qualifies as some sort of unique experience), why even make such a statement at all? And Jesus, there are a thousand companies there. I'm sure not all of them are the black pit you seem to be so intimate with.

Much of their M$ heavy stock funded retirement plans never gained their value back

Wait a sec. here, are you actually claiming that most of the Fortune 1000 have retirement funds which are based "heavily" on "M$" stock? And that is the reason they are in so much trouble? Seriously? I'd like to see some proof of that, thanks.

The Mississippi River bridge collapse

So let me see if I have this down. "M$" has some sort of evil effect on the Fortune 1000. Ergo -> rivers collapse.

I'm not sure, but I think this is a new low even for you. What is it, the idea that IIS might actually be a good piece of software that drives you to this kind of frenzy?

Re:Nope, worse in active domains.

[dedazo]

This does not mean they are not purchasing their market share

At least they are not trying to fake it like Bruce Perens.

I wouldn't have said this five years ago, but I think Real Soon Now people like you are going to have to start accepting that maybe IIS6/7 is simply good, and that's why they're gaining market share. I don't think they'll ever overtake Apache, but seriously, this "M$ must be buying market share and killing people" paranoia becomes ridiculous and untenable to say the least.

Re:What I like about open-source in general is tha

[MightyMartian]

A lot of people make the command line/GUI divide as a cultural one, between older and *nix admins and modern Windows admins. To be honest, even on the Windows boxes I administrate, I spend a lot of time on the command line. I navigate a lot faster that way, simply because I'm from the olden days of TRS-80s, Commodore 64s and MS-DOS. By the same token, I know some younger guys whose experience with the command line largely amounts to Start->Run, and they use Explorer like champions.

It's the singlest big complaint I have against Windows servers. I really miss Telnet/SSH. The built-in Telnet server for Windows is limited by the lack of good command line tools (including text editors). CYGWIN only partially fixes this, and I find it can get unstable when trying to use native Win32 apps over a telnet or SSH session.

Windows: 0-60; Unix: 60-100

[Anonymous Coward]

Having used both extensively over the past 10 years, IMHO 90% of the config tasks are easier with IIS for a non-expert [...]

Way back when, Jon Udell once wrote in BYTE magazine that Windows will get you from zero to sixty faster than Unix, but you need need Unix to get from 60 to 100.

IMHO Windows tended to be less 'deterministic' than Unix historically. Microsoft has certainly tried hard to improve things, but it seems to me that Unix has been approaching some asymptotical level for several years now, while Windows keeps looking better because of where it started.

-- DM

Netcraft Says IIe Gaining on IBM-PC

[jameskojiro]

Yeah, we all know how this worked out.

Next....

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[cHiphead]

Have you ever actually used php with IIS 7 on a production site?

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, Apache and php cannot be beat. It is funny to read people talking about how much easier .NET is then PHP. These people must have never used PHP! PHP is far easier and a supperior rapid development enviroment for the web then .NET. Event trapping and database connecting is too much and too complicated in .NET - not to mention the bandwidth! I guess this is the MS$ way. Of course many people learn on the MS Wizard editor and have no clue how the programming language truely works. PHP has a massive amount of modules, examples and support all of which is free. I have produced a lot of great code with PHP in no time flat!

Mod_rewrite is builtin into ASP.NET pipeline

[Anonymous Coward]

Fact 1: there is no included mod_rewrite with IIS. Why? there is no need for it, because...
Fact 2: mod_rewrite functionality is builtin into ASP.NET, and..
Fact 3: it is way better than mod_rewrite (as I know it - mod_rewrite is a simple file with regex rules)

why better: I can do whatever my language of choice can (for example call database if I want to during url rewrite, possible in mod_rewrite?)

howto: in global.asax.cs handle BeginRequest event (it occures just before a http request is handled), use whatever you want (regex, database, etc) to perform rewriting, and then call Context.RewritePath with new url to finish rewriting.

way better than mod_rewrite, don't you think? it is as if mod_rewrite was builtin into PHP...

Give it time..

[nurb432]

And all we will be allowed to run per varous legislated requirements is IIS. It will be the only 'HSD Certifed Safe' option out there.

And yes, it will suck. But who ever said life is fair?

who cares

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as the webservers are secure and do the job, who cares. For crying out loud, go find something else to crap on about.

Look Here

[Sammy Loo]

I'm currently a developer who works with PHP so I've been using a LAMP for a long time now. But I have also used ISS. I'll tell you now, theres no way in HELL the smart average guy who wants to start a server will use ISS first. They'll read everywhere that oh windows shouldnt be used for a development environment unless you purchase the $5000 Server edition, they'll grab a $200 junk machine and put Ubuntu Server installation on it. Instant lamp. Will the configure security and whatnot? As they need. A lamp has become so simple to use its ridiculous to tout ISS as a more "user friendly" option. Sure, GUIs are nice but whats so hard about pulling out text editor and editing a well commented text document? On top of that the out-of-box LAMP like the one that ships with Ubuntu Server is already well configured. And then if you have a debian or ubuntu distro, you just use a simple command, even without a server installation. Really, check this out.

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-admin apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-mod-auth-mysql php5-mysql phpmyadmin

Boom. Headshot. Goodbye IIS, hello workable server. Perhaps big companies want big enterprises to server for "support" reasons. But theres no reason the everyday code junkie WONT use Apache over IIS. IIS more "modular?" "Easier" interface to work with? I dont think that is by far at all. At least, not on a debian linux distro. Even for Fedora/RedHat, you can just yum -install everything. IMHO, the survey must be flawed. Working in the Multi-User Dungeon gaming area, everyone programs in PHP. Its just the smart thing to do. And for PHP, everyone knows you use APACHE. Not IIS. And unless you're asking to be hacked, not Apache on windows. And unless you're rich, not windows server. Point taken.

fucked up more businesses than any world war

[SgtChaireBourne]

also Microsoft professionals created the IT infrastructure that has caused billions of dollars in malware-related downtime, and degraded to useless performance of infested machines. Thank you Bill Gates, you've fucked up more businesses than any world war.

We see that according to last year's figures he's implicated in about around $7.8 billion dollars in malware damage, in the U.S. alone, per year. So if the U.S. really is succumbing to IIS like the original post claims, then there is concrete economic harm as a result.

Even if there are some costs in the transition over to OS X, Debian, Kubuntu, OpenBSD or whatever, it would still be a significant net gain for the US to drop the last remaining Windows machines.

Re:What I like about open-source in general is tha

[tuaris]

GUI's are for the amatures (and entertainment applications) but not for server configuration.

You may be right, but not everyone is a professional, the amateur server admins are going to look for something easy. Not all business can afford a full time IT professional. Microsoft's success was built on making it easy for ANYONE.

Are they counting parked domains?

[walterbyrd]

If so, then this "report" is 100% meaningless.

Also, if they don't clearly state whether or they are counting parked then this report is 100% meainingless.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that Apache is better, or that IIS could not be gaining.

I'm just saying that unless we know, for sure, whether parked domains are being counted, then this report is not meaningful.

I've never had any trouble configuring Apache

[Skapare]

I've never had any trouble configuring Apache. But then, I'm a geek. The problem isn't so much that Apache or PHP is losing out to IIS or .NET ... the problem (as we see it) is that geeks are losing out to suits.

Re:I've never had any trouble configuring Apache

[gral]

I think the problem is Microsoft is SO MUCH better at cheer leading than Open Source. We are in the "fight you" stage, and so far Microsoft is appearing to win. Of course, in Microsofts game, they only have to APPEAR to win, so they can get more people to SEE what they need them to see.

Apache is better for not requiring a GUI.

[walterbyrd]

Maybe you are not familiar with data centers. Things are done differently at data centers than on your desktop. Data centers servers run *huge* amounts of traffic, and they are managed by profession admins. And those admins are not challenged by a lack of a gui. Those admin may service hundreds of high-power servers at a time.

In fact, with high volume servers, a gui just gets in the way. The gui would just burn up cpu, and memory cycles. Most of the time, the blade server is not connected a monitor.

Re:Apache is better for not requiring a GUI.

[tuaris]

According to your post, I would assume that ALL data centers use Apache as an HTTP server. As much as I would like for this to be true, it simply isn't. I worked with a company that had their web servers on IIS at a very large data center. The Web Designers where also the server admins. Not every company can afford the time of a professional server admin. How could these web designers be expected to dive into a text based configuration.

Microsoft has designed such great GUI tools for their server, that you can manage it via GUI remotely. The MMC console allows you to hook up to as many remote servers as you'd like, and manage them via "point and click". It's true, this gets in the way for very large deployments, try changing the root directory for over 11,000 virtual sites with MMC. In Apache, I can just open of the conf file(s) and do a search and replace. Of course if you have a large deployment, a professional would know to use Apache instead of IIS.

The point is, the reason why Apache is loosing market share is because, the "amateurs" don't want to bother with a flat text file. You would agree, there are more amateurs than professionals. Microsoft knows this and they embraced it with Windows Server 2003 Web Edition. The Apache and open source community also knows, but for some reason the choose to ignore it.

Additionally, with today's high power servers, a GUI isn't going to burn up enough CPU or "memory cycles" to cause any kind of noticeable lag. Windows 2003 has a constantly running GUI, so does Mac OSX Server. If a GUI is slowing down a system so much, then maybe the GUI is bloated or the operating system is poorly designed, but thats another topic.

illegal, anticompetitives will win the day

[Anonymous Coward]

Half right. M$ got into the server room by eating Novell's market share. There and in all other markets, growth was facilitated or even enabled only through anti-competitive and often illegal means.

Other than that, you're right. If geeks are complacent and off in a fantasy universe where decisions are made on technical merit then M$ will wipe them off the map. In the real world, CxO's push M$ junk because they're part of the movement, have the hots for Bill or just want to make an ideological point that they will only use software from a "business".

Insightful? Cripes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you Bill Gates, you've fucked up more businesses than any world war.

Take note, would-be zealots - statements like these and over-exaggerating douchebags like the OP are the reason why FOSS is a hard sell to some PHBs.

Fucked up more business than any world war? Mother of Christ, get some fucking perspective.

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[gnarlin]

What about IIS7? Faster than Apache, just as modular, easier to install and configure. It's even the recommended server for PHP.

Except it doesn't have this very useful feature, and it never will.

China, China, China!

[gnuman99]

You have provided a good link for different countries, yet did not follow up. For example, all domains are at,

http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200706/ index.html (20% ISS, 73% Apache)

now, if we go by countries we see immediately who is responsible for the boat of ISS, (see website above for source)


Germany: 5% ISS, 92% Apache
US: 21% ISS, 74% Apache
Canada: 25% ISS, 70% Apache
India: 33% ISS, 63% Apache
China: 67% ISS, 28% Apache


Now, since China is adding more net users on the web faster than any other country, we see the problem. China is skewing Netcraft.

Re:China, China, China!

[pjbgravely]

If you look at the current survey, Apache is gaining ground even in China.

http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200707/ cn/index.html

Re:China, China, China!

[dbIII]

I'm wondering if that is Chinese domains or Chinese IP addresses. *.cn domains were incredibly cheap at one point (may still be) and spammers were buying them up in blocks of dozens so their spam would come from resolvable addresses that could be discarded after blacklisting. I suppose that is another form of a parked domain - it needs no webserver but if a few hundred point to one machine that has IIS for other reasons that may skew the results more than listing by IP address.

Also Micosoft software is easily and freely (literally) available in China and there is increasing broadband coverage.

Typos in your post.

[Jon.Laslow]

Jeez. Anything other than bashing, including bias, is now dismissed as fanboyism. No wonder *nix/Apple are regarded as cults.

Much better.

In other news

[duh P3rf3ss3r]

IIS currently drives as many top domains as Apache did in 1995.

and

IIS currently hosts as many domains as Apache did in early 2005.

moderators! moderators! moderators!

[Gary W. Longsine]

Look, you jackass moderators, the parent is an example of "Overrated" perhaps, but it's not a Troll. "Troll" should be used sparingly. If you don't understand what a Troll is, then don't fucking rate a post as "Troll". There has been a flood of inappropriate Troll ratings for the past several months. I seem them constantly.

To the rest of you, please, meta moderate frequently, and be sure to flag these kinds of things as "Unfair". It's the only hope to save Slashdot. God knows the keepers of the system won't fix the algorithms that allow people to be bounced out of the moderation system by a couple jackass moderators flipping Troll mods at all the people they don't like.

Re:moderators! moderators! moderators!

[Kalriath]

No. Troll is the most appropriate moderation for almost all Twitter posts. The only time he stops mosting anti-"M$" bullshit is when he loses the +1 karma bonus modifier due to too many downmods. He hates that, because then his foaming-at-the-mouth rabid FUD is less visible.

Re:moderators! moderators! moderators!

[Gary W. Longsine]

I disagree. While Twitter's posts tend to be vacuous, insipid, information-free, or merely incorrect on occasion, it isn't entirely clear to me that this differentiates Twitter's posts from, oh, probably half of the other posts at Slashdot these days. If the only difference is that Twitter has an opinion that annoys some people who use their mod points to punish people with differing opinions. Although Twitter can't express it very well, Twitter's opinions tend to be rooted in the notion that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist which has the media by the short hairs and which has done far more damage to the pace of technology development through use of anti-competitive and illegal monopolist tactics, than they have helped the pace by investment in R&D and delivery of interesting, innovative, high quality software.

With respect to the particular post above us, Twitter is being punished for having an opinion that differs from the moderator, rather than being punished for being consistently insipid. The Twitter post in question is weak sauce, but it isn't off-topic and it's not even really much different from the opinions held by quite a few people posting round here. Hell, it really isn't even inflammatory enough to warrant the briefest consideration as a Troll mod if it has been posted by some random newbee, for example, or by someone who posted on a wider variety of topics and had more "street cred".

Maybe other Twitter posts are Trolls, but this one seems unfairly punished by, what, possibly a paid pro-Microsoft contingent? Abuse of the Troll and Flamebait mods to squelch opinions that the moderators don't like appears to me to be entirely too common of late. Personally, I'd rather never see another post by that twit, Twitter, they are a waste of electrons, but Troll is an abuse in this case.

Re:What I like about open-source in general is tha

[MightyMartian]

Until disaster strikes, the server fails to work properly, and these part-time neophytes suddenly find themselves plunged into configuration hell. Quite frankly, I wouldn't hire any tech admin; full-time, part-time or contract, who couldn't get a basic Apache server up and running, even if I was mainly interested in IIS.

Actually they're right

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=253643&cid=199 42923
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=129735&thresho ld=5&cid=10823036
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=69025&cid=6308 015
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=195829&cid=160 48784
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=181656&cid=150 22164
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=112229&cid=952 1025

That's just a few of the many thousands.

My money's on "-1, retarded FLOSS advocate", but we don't have that moderation yet.

Re:Should be tagged with haha

[cecil_turtle]

I doubt anybody has, since, you know, IIS7 isn't available yet on a server OS (well, a stable one that's not beta).

Late 90s

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody remember with Microsoft marketing started to target administration with pro-microsoft CS education that focused on their software and languages without anything sent to convince the professors in the CS department? I do. Admin came in pushing the MS agenda without warning and a heavy bias from being suckered and made the department evaluate then explain why they found the offer to be software training instead of real computer science since explaining that expensive software for CS is not needed didn't work...

Professors who didn't care still have a distaste for microsoft after those evil moves...

IIS not installed by default in XP

[cbhacking]

While you're correct that XP's firewall can block IIS, it isn't even an issue on most machines. The default configuration, even for XP Pro, doesn't install IIS. As with Vista, you much go into the Windows Components section of the (Add/Remove) Programs window and select it. In XP you'll also need the install media; in Vista IIS is part of the installation image (this is part of why Vista's install footprint is so big; every feature, even those you aren't going to use, is copied to the hard drive at install time).

You can test this yourself: Go into Computer Management, then Services, and look for the IIS process (daemon). Generally, it's not even present, let alone enabled. Similarly, ping an XP machine - even one with its firewall off (or inside the firewall - try going to http://localhost - and you probably won't see anything at all (other than a server not found error). Netcraft would have a difficult time even detecting that the machine runs Windows.

Re:IIS not installed by default in XP

[plague3106]

While you're correct that XP's firewall can block IIS, it isn't even an issue on most machines. The default configuration, even for XP Pro, doesn't install IIS. As with Vista, you much go into the Windows Components section of the (Add/Remove) Programs window and select it. In XP you'll also need the install media; in Vista IIS is part of the installation image (this is part of why Vista's install footprint is so big; every feature, even those you aren't going to use, is copied to the hard drive at install time).

I wasn't sure as I haven't installed XP in a while, so I didn't want to put out a statement that I wasn't sure is true. Thanks for confirming this though, its what I expected, but didn't have time to verify.

Re:IIS not installed by default in XP

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh... if I wasn't forced to use an XP box at work, I wouldn't have been able to verify it either. I haven't installed XP on anything I own in a couple years.

Storm in a teacup

[steveoc]

What we are seeing here is quite simple - the old client-server fat desktop model of development is dying, and EVERYBODY wants to get in on web apps.

So of course, there is a big rush of growth in domain names (many of them parked), simple brochureware sites, and first-attempts at websites with a mix of content and backend code.

So its no surprise to see the result of millions of former desktop VB programmers take their first big steps out of the 1980's, and the result is a big growth in new sites of all kinds. We are going to see more and more and more Windows 'servers' popping up on the net.

You cannot infer from this anything useful in terms of comparing the functionality of IIS to Apache, or Windows to Unix, or (insert religious war flamebait here)

All you can infer is that the web continues to grow, and that many Microsoft centric developers are getting on board with web apps. Thats it in a nutshell.

You can infer from this that web apps have become a mainstream solution to age-old IT problems, and this trend is here to stay. Thats fantastically good news for anyone who is up to speed with the tubes of the internets, and who enjoys making their solutions web-based.

There are no more boardroom battles needed to convince PHB's that webifying your developments is a sensible plan of attack. Microsoft have done a fantastic job of breaking down that particular barrier. They have also done well for themselves in doing that, but unwittingly, by opening up the floodgates .. they are helping to make the old idea of 'The desktop is the computer' a thing of the past. THEY are helping to push the idea that 'the web is the computer' .. which truly opens the field up like never before.

And so, every new Microsoft server popping up on the web with some first attempt at a website is a future business opportunity. All of those sites (even the most spectacularly unsuccessful), will generate future requirements for bigger and better expansions down the track. As that happens, the business opportunities for taking these companies to the next level will be phenomenal.

Like anything remotely complicated, the real winners here are those rare breed of people with the skills to make it happen. The creme of the crop of MS developers will do well .. but for myself (as a Linux nut devoted to the web), it is also a good thing. Its so much easier to take something already almost-running on IIS, and convert it to my way of doing things, than it is to take a hairball mess of a VB, Access and Office based 'desktop solution' .. and make it work on the web.

I dont know how many readers here can remember the early 1990's .. but I remember clearly how Microsoft tried every trick in the book to kill this threat called 'the internet'. It was clear back then that the internet would (eventually) spell the end of the road for a complete Windows stranglehold. Their replacement vision at the time (called 'The Microsoft Network') was a non-TCP/IP based global SMB network that would rely on RPC's and OLE-2 over netbui. Thank fuck that never happened !!!

Whilst Microsoft may conveniently be rewriting history 1984 style to suit themselves (We are allied to Eurasia, we have always been strong allies of Eurasia) .. fact is, they are being extremely helpful at the moment in supporting the notion of the web as an application platform. WE have been fighting for this concept for over 15 years now. I for one thoroughly welcome Microsoft to the party .. helping US put a nail in the coffin of the closed and proprietary desktop operating system paradigm.

Re:Storm in a teacup

[ClosedSource]

"What we are seeing here is quite simple - the old client-server fat desktop model of development is dying, and EVERYBODY wants to get in on web apps."

You're right. Web apps are a major fad and many people want to replace their fully functional in-house client-server system with slightly less functional web app equivalent. It's a waste of money, but it does help developers' keep marketable.

Yeah, botnets.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many of these new sites are intentional.

Re:What I like about open-source in general is tha

[El_Oscuro]

The Windows command shell is actually quite powerful, if a total kludge. I routinely have 30 command shell windows open at work to perform various tasks. Unless you know where to look, you will never find any documentation on it. However, you can access the man pages for it by typing "help" at a command prompt. The 2 most useful commands are FOR and SET.

Market doesnt care about hottest thing

[unity100]

it people do. clients with us for example, do not care whether hottest thing is sliced bread or newly washed sock. they just put their site, and happy that it works as intended. lamp does that.

You dont know the half of it

[unity100]

Once configured properly, an apache web server is as solid as the thing it generally runs on : linux.

once you get to know the config, its configurable as in any way you can imagine - pro stuff.

if you are serving hosting COMMERCIALLY to people, there is apache, and iis doesnt count. you only need it for people who need to use asp and ms stuff.

Nay

[unity100]

there are configs that you cant do with IIS's point and click config interfaces. These you can do with apache. when in a production environment that serves many hosting clients, this is a matter of life and death.

however

[unity100]

whereas php is "known to suck" by /. crowd, unlimited numbers of small and medium businesses are creating big stores with oscommerce, creloaded and likewise wariants and zillions of people are gathering up in communities which are built on phpbb, nuke and such.

if something sucks, you cant provide anything to zillions of people on it. if something can do that, there must be something to it.

noone cares whether this or that forgotten or known-to-none language/scripting stuff has a phletora of tricks and they rule or whatnot. people in the wild just want things done, want things fast, want things cheap. thats the mindset that has driven human commercial and technological evolution, and those who couldnt comply with it have been forgotten, those did, became the norm.

hard cold truth.

We are hosting around 230 or so sites at same ip

[unity100]

in one box only on LAMP - and this number does not count in sites that are constructed by parked domains (you create a subdomain, park the domain on the subdomain, and voila - it acts like a web site from the same account), subdomains and whatnot.

we are a small web hosting business, yet we alone host this number just in one box very satisfactorily. there are zillions of other small business web hosts like us, who host even more. almost all of these are on LAMP - red hat or bsd preferred.

therefore i dont think that the above article and the stats it presents can be respected for conclusions to be drawn upon them. one thing i know is iis do not have any notable thing in this scale of web hosting world for small businesses and personal customers and communities. it just doesnt exist to the extent that we never had the need or urge or justification to set up any iis boxes even for trying out giving things like asp and whatnot which work on it better to people who ask them. and there were almost no people asking them since 2003 december.

Street software in China

[Anonymous Coward]

China: 67% ISS, 28% Apache


Now, since China is adding more net users on the web faster than any other country, we see the problem. China is skewing Netcraft.

Thus spake Chairman Bill:

• "As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." — 1998
• "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not," — 2007

So if Chairman Bill has called his poodle in the East to heel and to have his people pirate MS products -- oops, I mean -- pirate MS products, many of those will be outdated versions with junk like IIS on by default or modified variants of new versions with junk like IIS on by default.

So what will happen is that basic users will figure out how to turn of unwanted services like IIS. Advanced users wanting a web server will quickly discard IIS in favor of one of the more flexible, secure and easy to mantain ones.

right on

[sentientbrendan]

IIS has put out some nice features that are turning heads away from apache, and apache, or some open source server needs to step up and meet the challenge.

I've used IIS and apache, and the main feature that I see that IIS has and apache doesn't is ease of configurability.

Microsoft has made a commitment to configuration files all being XML, and having GUIs sitting on top of them, that makes getting an install working pretty trivial.

Apache on the other hand has its own flat file format, that nothing else knows how to parse. If you want to install support for a new language or something, the installer usually include a script that either nukes your old httpd.conf or appends something to the end of it. Either way, that's a good way to break things.

Aside from that, I'd say that apache is still pretty strong. ASP .NET is pretty good, aside from their screwed up event model, but there are a lot of other packages under heavy development to compete with that.

Re:right on

[juhaz]

Apache on the other hand has its own flat file format, that nothing else knows how to parse. If you want to install support for a new language or something, the installer usually include a script that either nukes your old httpd.conf or appends something to the end of it. Either way, that's a good way to break things. Usually? On what century?

I can't even recall the last time I saw apache set up without conf.d style system, in which the installer just drops it's own file to conf.d directory, and everything there is automatically included. It doesn't need to touch the existing httpd.conf at all.

Have you ever used IIS?

[msimm]

We run a mixed shop. Mainly MS and Linux. The MS server is a pig. Updates require regular (slow) reboots. Network chatter is high and unnecessary. I hate it.

On the desktop I have no problem. With a decent backup solution in place it provides pretty much what the user wants. Supporting it is routine (did you restart the application? did you restart the system?). But on the server side I find Linux/BDS/Solaris/etc to be far more agile. Their far better at what they do.

A GUI does not work everywhere

[dbIII]

Why isn't there a zero-fuss web interface backend built into Apache that enables me to configure anything I want with 3 clicks of a mouse (with a backend deactivation option of course).

The old greyed out menu option that you know should be available is a very hard thing to avoid when setting up a GUI and sometimes forces you to hack the text files or registry when the developer has not got it right - anybody that has looked after MS Windows systems for some time will be familiar with this. A GUI is for when you have very limited choices - a httpd.conf file can have a huge amount of stuff appended to the end which would be a difficult thing for a tidy GUI. What SHOULD be obvious is that a new server with no difference apart from the name is a lot easier to set up by copying the config file from another host and modifying the one line insteady of half an hour navigating through twisty menus and dialog boxes. A good config file can have a huge quantity of comments and just a hash mark to remove to turn on the thing you need below six lines that tell you why - that is not easy to do in a GUI without it being a huge mess.

To be patronising to the GUI only advocates who want infinitely flexable ones for complex settings - you are grown up - you should be able to read and write by now.

mod_rewrite rewrites URLs

[cciRRus]

I've never heard of mod_rewrite so I did a quick search and found this:

This module uses a rule-based rewriting engine (based on a regular-expression parser) to rewrite requested URLs on the fly. It supports an unlimited number of rules and an unlimited number of attached rule conditions for each rule to provide a really flexible and powerful URL manipulation mechanism. The URL manipulations can depend on various tests, for instance server variables, environment variables, HTTP headers, time stamps and even external database lookups in various formats can be used to achieve a really granular URL matching.

Learnt something new today! :)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

IIS spoof?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this take into account all the people who modify the Apache source to display "Microsoft IIS" as an attempt to thwart hackers?

IIS and PHP at mydeathspaces.com

[twitter]

What about IIS7? Faster than Apache, just as modular, easier to install and configure. It's even the recommended server for PHP.

You have got to be kidding me. These people have great things to say about that combination. Let's just say a 5 second uptime is not good enough.

Re:IIS and PHP at mydeathspaces.com

[Kalriath]

I think Zend (developers of the CORE OF PHP, you know?) might be a better source than that random site. And they say that on Win32 platforms IIS7 with FastCGI is the recommended operating environment.

You are so cool

[Anonymous Coward]

And that web site looks like a prime source of information about this topic. Thank you very much!