Regular changes to the Apache 2 API has developers questioning its usability.Also, extremely low uptake of Apache 2 has caused its producers to advocate freez-ing development of the open-source Web server until makers of add-in software catch up. Almost six months after the launch of Apache 2, less than one percent of sites use it, due to a lack of suitable third-party modules.
Web Sites Reject Apache 2
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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is in mho the more missed one. Most site running apache do have mod_php endenbed in them, so when php will be available for Apache 2.0, the sites will upgrade. Also machines in production are harder to upgrade then new build machine, most sites on the internet are production.
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http://islande.hirlimann.net
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…that’s one of the classic rules of running a server…for most people, Apache 1.3 works just fine, is reasonably secure, and is tried and true. On the Windows side of things, look how many sites are still run from NT 4.0 and IIS 4.0…and then there’s all the VMS systems and IBM mainframes out there too.
Apache 2.0 is not compellingly better in most cases and therefore it may be a while before it actually is upgraded.
That is exactly what I am waiting for, third party modules. I have two production web servers, a test server, and each developer (3 of us) have the exact same local setup for testing. That makes a total of 6 Apache web servers, and each of them is running a slew of third party modules; most of which are still unavailable:
mod_ssl
mod_auth_pam
mod_php
mod_perl
mm
And, I am not even sure Apache 2 has openSSL support. Does anyone know the status of that?
Jeremy
I run Apache2 as http acceleration proxy for 1.3 application server and it works really great…with that worker MPM mode…
Jeremy: SSL is supported
i’ve had php running on an apache2 server for months. what’s the problem? about the only difference i’ve encountered between apache1 and 2 is the command-line option you must pass the configure script for php (use –with-apxs2=… instead of –with-apxs=…).
//On the Windows side of things, look how many sites are still run from NT 4.0 and IIS 4.0//
Anyone who stays there, and refuses to upgrade to IIS 5 on W2K, is a doofus.
W2K/IIS 5 *blows away* NT 4/IIS 4 in so many ways, it’s not even funny (security, speed, features, stability)
..not that Security is a badge of honor for MS lately…
1.3 Mine runs with support for php, ssi, mod_perl and frontpage. The frontpage is the most quirky part of it, and I wouldn’t even think of switching until I’m sure nothing will break. Curious about the new SSL though, anybody tried it yet?
dopey_joe: The better statement would be:
Anyone who stays there, and refuses to upgrade to apache on (insert OS of choice) is a doofus.
warez isn’t for the enterprise user and you are completely ignoring licensing the copy of IIS/Win2k Server.
Is this even an issue for people who are setting up apache for the first time? I was considering starting out with Apache 2 (figuring that Apache 1.3x would be depreciated), but maybe not ?
Personally I don’t upgrade unless I have a business case to do so. I have other things to do, and don’t just toss new versions of the software up for the fun of it. My last apache upgrade was due to the security hole.
That said.. I think 2.0 is a great product. It has a wonderful cache system built in, is more efficient, and otherwise is a good product. I just don’t need those specific features at this moment in time. In a month, if I need them, I’ll upgrade.
I don’t even usually run many modules, since most application code is in Java, but why change your environment if it isn’t necessary for {security,functionality,usage,capability} reasons.
It think the main “problem” is that Apache works.
Meaning there are little reason for upgrading running 1.3 servers.
Is the principal problem for the migration…
I would use apache 2 if it comed out of the box with php4 support and mysql as it happens with apache 1.3… In development i use w2k in production i use linux (normally i prefer linux based hostings, but sometimes i need the dreaded w2k production environment)…
I normally prefer to use versions similar to the production environment… and that means apache 1.3…
Cheers…
Apache 2 works great, the included SSL and WebDAV (instead of having to download 3rd party modules) is very nice. In my tests, it has proven very unstable with PHP though – I have some web apps which crash repeatedly under Apache 2 + PHP 4.2.2.
Unfortunately, that means I’m stuck running both versions side by side on the same server (I need Apache 2 for Subversion). As soon as PHP 4.3 is released, I will be happy to remove the old version.
We had some problems with Apache2/PHP and W2k on http://www.moregroupware.org/
Just for saying something
I have been using apache2 on a devel box for awhile, and it works great. Well it’s great as long as I run it as prefork and stay away from worker. php won’t work properly if built as threadsafe b/c all the php extensions have to be threadsafe also and that is where I have had problems. It also won’t run on FreeBSD properly at all with worker (using -STABLE), but again great as prefork.
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Matt
My annoyance with some open-source software is the way they force the people who make addons for the software in question to update their add-ons. If Apache has made it difficult for people to port Apache1 modules to Apache2, they should not be surprised that Apache2 is not as usable as Apache1.
This is one mistake Microsoft does not make–they make sure that older code runs fine in newer environments.
– Sam (open source developer: http://www.maradns.org)
My experience, and a number of people posting comments to the PHP docs, tells me lots of people are having problems with Apache 2 and PHP on non-windows platforms. Some claim to get it working via source code hacks, but with changing APIs, I just don’t think that’s the right thing to do.
If it sits there, works, and doesn’t cost you more money, you won’t upgrade it. I am sure that many homeusers would want to upgrade, have fun, mess around. But we are out of the dot com area, many companies don’t want to spend more on their web when their company is bleeding money, and .NET is a shoe in for web technologies as well.
But if they want 2.0 to gain any ground they should have frozen all the APIs before the release of 2.0 final. Upgrading servers is expensive, and even more expensive if you happen to crash the whole thing in the process.
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I don’t get it. This is in comparison to the usual takeup rate of what exactly?
Is get it working stable, then leave it the [expletive, expletive, more naughty words] alone!
Dopey Joe’s comment, about anyone not upgrading to 2K is typical techno-bull. Ever run NT4 on a 486DX2/66? Probably not since it runs like molassas, which is interesting since it’s an ideal NT3.51 platform. Then again considering even the bandwidth of 10/100 ethernet, anything faster than that for simple (non-cgi) serving is overkill. These single floppy linux Router distro’s are proof enough of that, as is Novell 3.2. Remember 3.2? Boot Roms? Running a network of 100+ computers with no internal drives off a single 486/33 server with a 2 gig SCSI drive? All this BS 32-bit overhead crap just seems to be dragging our so called ‘powerful’ systems back down to this performance level.
The following questions should always be asked before you upgrade anything.
1> Is it stable as is?
2> Is is fast enough? (not fast, fast enough, is difference)
3> Does it do what you need done?
If you answer yes to all three, common sense is LEAVE IT BE!
Reminds me of the User Friendly cartoon, well, rather than describe I’ll just link.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20020318&mode=classic
Which of course, is why I still know a good number of accountants that still run Excel 4 on Windows 3.1 machines. It does what they need to do in the time they have to do it in. Mind you their 3.1 is patched into stability (1mb fort, etc), but I find it a touch heartwarming to see it still having a use today.
Well, enough rant for today.
That as I type this I am in bed using my 386sx-16 laptop with 2 megs of RAM, running arachne through a wireless link to my LAN. It’s funny since in terms of screen updates and web browsing I’m getting 90% the capabilities of my T-Bird 1.33 based workstation.
For anything other than gaming, most of this processor speed BS is exactly that, and non-game programs that require faster computers to do stuff the previous generation software did on slow machines is bloatware, pure and simple.
For example, want to see Win95 on a P-133 blow a Celery running ME out of the water on normal stuff like web browsing? Give both 256 megs of RAM. Set the Celery up normally, but on the -133 set up a ramdisk of 192 megs during boot, then move the swap file onto the ramdisk.
Swap file, talk about another load of bull that just slows #$% down. I’ve got a meg of RAM in my box, what the @#$% does XP need a swap file for. I’m still seeing page commits here? WHY??? If a 256 meg system page commits 400-500 megs of data, why would a 1024 meg system need to write anything out to the swap.
Sloppy programming, that’s why.
Sorry, getting off topic. Will shut up about the common sense stuff.
meant gig of ram, not meg.
Swap file, talk about another load of bull that just slows #$% down. I’ve got a meg of RAM in my box, what the @#$% does XP need a swap file for. I’m still seeing page commits here? WHY??? If a 256 meg system page commits 400-500 megs of data, why would a 1024 meg system need to write anything out to the swap.
Due to the nature of VMs. Since the VM used in OSes like Linux and Windows XP need to scale well on very different hardware they need to compromise. Why do you think both Linux and BeOS wants twice the physical RAM size in swap? I’m not a VM programmer but I know this is the case – to get the VM perform as good as possible.
If you’re interested there’s a good VM article here:
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/vm-design/