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Apache Software

Is Apache 2.x Ready for General Use? 41

Posted by Cliff from the peeking-into-the-oven dept.
Above asks: "In this article we see apache 2.0.45 has been released. Well, I plan on rebuilding my webserver soon, which means installing the "latest" version. However, I'm still on the 1.x train, which is still going strong. As someone who hasn't used 2.x, and hasn't followed the development is it ready for the masses or should I stick with 1.x and be happy? Are mod_perl and ssl (my two requirements) stable? What about all the other things (php et all)? I don't do anything fancy with my web sites, but having them "just work" and not having to upgrade every other day are both strong concerns. What are your experiences?"
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Is Apache 2.x Ready for General Use? More

Is Apache 2.x Ready for General Use?

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  • Almost... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 25, 2003 @08:39PM (#5812980)
    But not quite. They're finally starting to get the idea that if they keep breaking external modules each release, no one is going to use it. They're almost to the point where when you download Apache and PHP, you know they'll work together. Give it a few more months.

    • Re:Almost... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by bryanthompson ( 627923 )
      no kidding, getting coldfusion mx installed with apache2 was hell. Finally i got it working, but it was insane. I think it took 4 different patches, which I installed in the wrong order a few times before figuring it out.
      really, it shouldn't be that hard.

      • Re:Almost... (Score:3, Informative)

        by hawkbug ( 94280 )
        I completely feel your man. I installed Red Hat 8.0, and was insanely ticked to find out that the included RPM for apache 2.0.40 would not work with MX! Even though Red Hat back-ports most of the new fixes into their apache builds, CFMX was not smart enough to figure out it had been modified. I had to uninstall Apache, PHP, and everything else that was dependent upon Apache, and build my own. There's a reason I use a distro's RPMS people!! It saves me a ton of time, but when CFMX wouldn't work with it,
        • I just downloaded redhat 9, all 6 cds... I'm going to try to get apache 2.0.44 and cfmx installed. I'll write down the steps I took if it works, and post it to their support forum. i really hope it works :)

    • Re:Almost... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Khazunga ( 176423 ) *
      It's quite good, at least for Apache + mod_php. Despite the warnings up at php.net (which seem to be gone now), mod_php works right out of the box with any recent apache, provided you don't use threaded worker models. It makes sense, since handling the fact that mod_php instances would be sharing memory space requires changes to the current codebase. Just stick with the old prefork [apache.org] MPM. I have this setup handling a fairly large site for the last several months, without a glitch.

      mod_perl is supposed to be

  • I use it (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bistronaut ( 267467 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @08:43PM (#5812993) Homepage Journal
    It comes as the default on the newer RedHats, so I installed it. You probably won't even notice the difference. The config file has been cleaned up some, but it's not different enough to rock the boat. Unless you have a specific need to run the old verson, I would definitely go with it on a new install. For old installs, there's no need to upgrade.

  • Apache 2 is ready, but why bother? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MS_is_the_best ( 126922 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @08:50PM (#5813028)
    Yes, Apache 2 is stable and ready for some time. No doubt about that, it runs on lots of productions sites (check netcraft.com).

    Also mod_php, ssl and mod_php are working fine. (although shorter then Apache 2 itself). This is partly because Apache 2 wants thread-safety and some modules (actually not sure about Perl) aren't.

    Is see no particular reason not to install Apache 2, but also no reason to do. Redhat is used a lot by internet providers and ships with 2.0 default since 8.0. The 1.3 branch is still maintained and seems faster on Unix-based systems (with fork). On Windows Apache 2 wins, due to the use of threads.

    This is a bit standard answer (everyone knows this things, easy to find out), so I want to ask this: How long will all products (mod_*) still work just as good under Apache 1.3.x as under 2.0.x and will 3rd party providers drop support for 1.3 soon? (thus 'forcing' us to upgrade)?

    • Re:Apache 2 is ready, but why bother? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Khazunga ( 176423 ) * on Saturday April 26, 2003 @05:44AM (#5814121)
      Why bother:
      • Threading: If you live in Windows land, or in some comercial Unix (namely Solaris), the use of pthreads is surely a speed boost. Beware of module thread safety (mod_php and mod_perl don't support threaded MPMs).
      • Better support for non-Unix platforms: Just for foreigners (win32 people). Apache 2 is considerably faster on windows, than the version 1 counterpart, due to the threading MPM and the new Apache Portable Runtime.
      • Filtering: Filtering allows for fun new stuff, like processing a page with mod_php, then SSI and mod_deflate in the end.
      • Code cleanup: The new Apache is supposedly better designed, easier to maintain and extend, so upgrading is encouraged to avoid having to maintain the old codebase.
      • I'm not sure why everyone is saying PHP and Apache 2.0 aren't compatible when in a non-prefork MPM. I use the threadpool (worker thread) MPM in Apache 2.0.45 and have PHP 4.3.1, SSL 0.9.7b, MySQL 4.0.11, and Oracle 9i 9.2.0 all compiled in, and have experienced NO problems whatsoever.

        Understanding the MPM stuff is still hazy, like how to tweak the process/thread limits like I did in 1.3.x. It would be nice if someone would write up a document specifically about these (beyond the documentation already ava
    • I run apache 2 and PHP, and it not only installed just as the instructions said it would, but it also has worked flawlessly since. I would recommend it for anyone not running an extremely critical site. (and maybe shortly some of those too)

  • Seems OK to me (Score:3, Informative)

    by rasteri ( 634956 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @09:05PM (#5813085) Journal
    Well, I've been running it for about 2 months and it's never given me any problems. I don't really notice any advantages (or disadvantages) compared to 1.3, although the config file is nicer.

  • It's ok but.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MrIcee ( 550834 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @09:28PM (#5813160) Homepage
    We've upgraded our SUNS right along with Apache's releases, and we're running the latest and greatest.

    However, we do have one complaint and have filed bug reports [apache.org] which so far have been unresolved. (btw, prior to apache-2.0.39 we did not experience this problem)

    A number of uses of SUN servers (we use ULTRAS and V100's) have noted that apache httpd children processes hang ocassionally. With prior than .45 releases we were seeing a hang a few times a week. With the .45 release we are seeing on average 3 to 5 hangs a day, so the problem has gotten worse.

    This is not just our boxes - other people have confirmed the problem and the orginal bug report referenced above was actually opened not by me. I asked the original poster if they had problem too with the .45 version and they just upgraded last week and reported back that it also appeared to them to have the problem worse.

    Specifically, a child will hang. If you connect via port 80 (e.g., telnet) to the child it answers, but when you type your line (e.g., GET /) it hangs upon carriage return and ALL the children then are hung in the same manner. There is no load associated with the hang, but the server stops responding FOR A PERIOD OF TIME to port 80 requests (e.g., they all hang). The server does seem to eventually recover - but not fast enough for our clients ;)

    Both the original poster and myself have written watchdog programs which ping (mine pings every 5 seconds) the server and if the server doesn't respond it sends a KILL -USR1 signal (bascially a form of HUP) to the parent process. In 99.9999% of the cases this unsticks the parent and life returns to normal (note, there is no load associated with the hung children - e.g., load does not go up when the child hangs). In the .0001% of the cases where at least two consecutive KILL's don't unstick the parent we do a forced kill of all apache and restart it (again, automated by the watchdog).

    THe other reporter is also using SUNS, so this might be particular with their 2.8 OS. Also, ALL of our suns exhibit it, regardless of apache config, etc.

    Besides that, also note there are a few changes to the config so using your old config will PROBABLY result in apache bitch'n the first time you startup, but the changes are pretty minor (mostly things you don't need anymore).

    • Apache/2.0.44 (Unix) - FreeBSD 4.7

      I had a set of URL's to test my logging daemon, I set wget off locally and got the same behaviour the parent describes.

      wget would fly through the requests for a while then I noticed it saying "connection refused". While scratching my head it sprung back into life. This pattern was repeated.

      Until I can verify that this is something that doesn't happen any more I won't be putting it on public view.

      I run it at home as a filtering proxy. You can pipe all pages received thro
      • We went ahead and did the upgrade mainly because there are security issues with the past versions. Like I said in my original post, we have a little daemon that runs and looks for, among other things, the hung processes. It KILL -USR1 the parent process ID (launch ID) and that resolves the problem.

        Since we've implemented this strategy no users or clients hav ever noticed the hangs. Like I mentioned, we get a few a day (3 to 5) but they're resolved within 5 seconds of occuring..

        Our little iDefend progra

    • I'm glad I read this -- I was thinking for a while that I must have setup something wrong on my Apache 2.x install.

      I was running Apache 1.3.x (and it worked just fine), and when I made the switch over to Apache 2.x (after I upgraded RedHat 7.2 => 9.0), I started getting all sorts of random hangs and crashes in my PHP code.

      I recompiled Apache, ran gdb on it, and found where one of its children processes was segfaulting and driving CPU utilization up to 100% .... A bug like that hasn't done much to inspi
      • I believe that your bug is a different bug than the one we're reporting. The bug we're seeing NEVER produces high load. The child simply doesn't respond and load goes to zero (since nobody can get hits).

        There were other reports similar to yours of high load but those have been resolved (as per the bug reports). I recommend searching the apache bug reports for "high load" and "hang" and see if you can find your report and the associated fix.

  • maybe (Score:4, Informative)

    by GiMP ( 10923 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @09:46PM (#5813213)
    Mod_perl 2.0 is not stable yet and is missing some features, so you might be better off with 1.3 if you're looking to use it. However, you can certainly get by with using Apache 2.0 and you will likely have a good experience.

    I run both on my servers as I have users who aren't ready for the switch yet and others who want to run the 'latest and greatest'. I also happen to run all of MySQL 3, MySQL 4, and Postgresql 7.3 ;)

  • I like it (Score:3, Informative)

    by demmegod ( 620100 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @09:52PM (#5813232)
    I'm using the latest iteration of Apache, and I like it. I'm running it along with PHP and mod_perl, and it all seems to be working well. I've not had any stability issues, and setting it up (I always compile from source) was extremely easy. I choose to compile ALL of the modules, and it still compiled in very little time. I wouldn't ever even think of going back to 1.x

  • If it Ain't Broke... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Michael's a Jerk! ( 668185 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @10:00PM (#5813269) Homepage Journal
    ...Don't fix it.

    Unless you have a good reason to upgrade, why bother? If this is for a business, and you have no good reason, you have nothing to gain and something (time to upgrade, etc) to lose.

    I'm *not* bashing Apache, which is a damn fine product - but we need to get this 'irrational urge to upgrade' out of our heads.

  • Apache is fine, but the modules.... NO. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hawkbug ( 94280 ) <psxNO@SPAMfimble.com> on Friday April 25, 2003 @11:54PM (#5813611) Homepage
    I've used apache 2.0.40 and 2.0.44. I use PHP and ColdFusion with apache on Red Hat Linux. Every freaking time I upgrade apache, I have to completely recompile most modules with it. And even once you get past that, there are some stability issues with PHP. I compiled in support for Apache 2.0.44 with PHP 4.3.1. So far, it's been a nightmare. PHP will randomly corrupt data that I insert into mysql tables. You may think it might be a mysql problem, but if I use the same database with Apache 1.3.27 and PHP 4.1, everything is cool. So, unless you have to switch, don't yet. They will work out the bugs, and then when they do, you know 2.0.X is gonna rock and become yet another legendary product put out by the Apache group.

  • I Recently Did The Same Thing (Score:3, Informative)

    by Enoch ( 86158 ) on Saturday April 26, 2003 @03:33AM (#5813917) Homepage

    I wrote up an article on installing and configuring the Apache 2.x series with SSL, mod_perl, mod_php, standard graphics libraries (GD, libjpeg, libfreetype, libpng), FreeTDS (to connect to MS SQL Server), and pam_smb/mod_auth_pam (to authenticate against an NT PDC) [alpha-geek.com]. Pretty exhaustive Apache setup. At the very least, I can assure you that everything works just fine even with those ultra-specific Apache needs.

    enoch
  • Anyone have experience with using Apache 1.3.x or 2.x as a reverse proxy? I've been testing this at work and am thinking about convincing management to implement a load-balanced reverse proxy Apache setup to sit in front of our IIS boxes. The idea being increased security, caching, flexability (can rearrange site content with the proxies), etc. So far the sites I've tested with seem to work okay, but there is a question in my mind how well it would work for a large, million-hits per month site
    • Anyone have experience with using Apache 1.3.x or 2.x as a reverse proxy?

      One of our customers ( http://www.amcham.com.br/ [amcham.com.br]) uses it extensivelly, as a "front-end" to dynamic web sites running on both a Zope [zope.org] server running on the same machine, and a MS IIS server running on a separate machine. Also, this same Apache also serves up static content residing on files in the same machine.

      We also do caching for the "static part" (.gif,.css,.jpg,etc) of the dynamic content, as we have found that this redu

    • Apache 2.0.40 didn't work as a reverse proxy with disk caching for me. It would write the cache files, but never deliver them. Quite hairy to find out. You fiddle and fiddle on your headers, because you think they are the culprit, but you get never the performance you think you should get.

      This bug was confirmed from apache developers, but it well might be fixed now (I'm back to apache1).

      Apache1 is perfectly up to the task, but be sure you understand what headers the backend servers have to send in order t
    • Yeah, Apache 1.3 is very good at this. mod_proxy does caching very well in 1.3 however in 2 they have separated the caching to mod_cache. This module is still experimental so best to stick with 1.3 for now. I use apache as a reverse proxy for all the web sites at my organisation its the only way you can feel safe with IIS :).

  • Kinda (Score:2, Insightful)

    by timbrown ( 578202 )
    Just done the upgrade myself, and Apache2 appears fine. HOWEVER, I had big problems with the latest mod_php (4.3.1), they seem to have changed the behaviour of includes, so that when you do an include, the pwd becomes the directory in which the include was located. This breaks a lot of web applications such as phpBB2 and Postnuke. I ended up reverting to an older version of PHP (4.2.1) compiled as a CGI which did the trick fine. IPv6 support sure is nice though!

  • you could always mod_proxy to 1.13.x (Score:3, Informative)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Saturday April 26, 2003 @06:14AM (#5814152) Journal
    I run 1.13.x on port 8081 and mod_proxy requests for the virtual domains on it from 2 to 1.13

    That way I knew my old setup would still work while I get the chance to use Apache2 to experiment.

    Any new stuff could then be tested on both
  • No.
    It supports IPv6, but my 1.3.27 does that as well,
    _and_ it's audited by Theo de Raadt.

    http://www.OpenBSD.org/
    http://MirBSD.BSDadvoca cy.org/

  • Not really (Score:2, Informative)

    by cdh ( 6170 )
    Back in Feb, I tried installing a new RH8 box and tried using its Apache2, and tried installing a newer version. Things seemed to work "OK", but it seemed slower and PHP integration was not quite working. We use Gallery [sf.net] and it only worked about half the time. We reverted to 1.3.x and everything has been fine.
  • PHP4 doesn't really work
    And a lack of Apache::Request makes mod_perl2 pretty much useless.

    Nuff said.

    • Re:Not really. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      PHP4 works just fine. I am using Gentoo, emerge of apache2 and mod_php, make all my settings as per my old 1.x configs and it's up and running.

      Considering how there are -a lot- of sites running apache2 and PHP4, I'd say check your facts first ;)

      (Blu3)

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