NYCPHP Meetup

[Hans Zaunere]

Chris Shiflett wrote:

> --- Scott Mattocks <crisscott at netzero.com> wrote:
> 
>>We will be switching over to a new server that is going to be running 
>>Apache 2.0.46. Our current system runs Apache 1.3.something with PHP 
>>4.3.2. When Apache 2.0 first came out I heard a lot of people saying 
>>not to run it if you are using PHP but I can't remember why. Are there 
>>still issues mixing the two?
> 
> 
> I had dinner with Rasmus last night and brought this specific topic up. I
> can't say that I've ever been entirely clear on it all, especially since
> mod_perl 2.0 has plenty of third-party modules and such that aren't thread
> safe. But, since he has always been the person warning against Apache 2
> the most, I figured he was the best person to talk to. It was also
> convenient, because 2 of the 3 core mod_perl developers were there as
> well, so I sparked a good conversation and basically sat back and
> listened. :-)
> 
> Apache 2 is fine in pre-fork mode is what I got out of it. Rasmus just
> isn't a big fan of using software until it has been around for a very long
> time, but my opinion is that Apache 2 is working well for a lot of very
> important sites, including Ticketmaster (those guys had some crazy stories
> about server load when a big show goes on sale). But, he did admit that
> using the pre-fork MPM eliminated the threading issues as well as pretty
> much all of his complaints.
> 
> Nat Torkington came to the same conclusion, as mentioned in his journal
> (http://use.perl.org/~gnat/journal/15902).
> 
> So, I'm going to start telling people that Apache 2 is fine as long as you
> use the pre-fork MPM or you're sure that all third-party modules you use
> are thread safe.

Interesting... but did he, or anyone else, have a compelling reason to use Apache 2 in the pre-fork MPM?  As I understand it, Apache 2's architecture is significantly more complex, incurs more overhead, and as Rasmus pointed out, is not as well tested.  And, when combined with being more complex, this becomes exponentially more important - not to mention PHP's SAPI for Apache 2, is eh, new.  If you could run this by him over dinner tonight, that'd be great  :)

H