Forum OpenACS Development: Apache now has nsv like support, tcl

rarman: um, nothing wrong with aolserver, but it's stupid to claim superiority to apache on those grounds
	rarman	yes but it makes no sense to send an external request to the server - so a 500 error is actually more appropriate and accurate
	rarman	Trisk: explain, without accusing me of being stupid, pls :)
	Triskelios	rarman: that request is a perfectly valid filename if it didn't have http://
	rarman	Trisk: it did
	rarman	...have http://
	Triskelios	rarman: oh, ok
	Triskelios	rarman: apache generally has more modules written for it than anything else, and has a decent track record for security
	rarman	Trisk: so was it a port scan I should be worried about, or is it innocent?
	spike	it's still wrong if one wants to be pricky :P
	spike	return code should been 501, as the proxy service isnt implemented
	Triskelios	true
	rarman	Trisk: agreed that's true - but it's load handling and wide use make it fast but ill-suited for very large sites and ideal security
	spike	but everybody just throws 500 these days
	rarman	Trisk: and there are many many many aolserver modules
	rarman	spike: interesting
	spike	rarman: you should be as worried about it as for any other portscan: not at all
	Triskelios	rarman: um, there's good load-balancing setups for apache
	spike	expecially for such scans, they are simply looking for a server to anonymously look at pr0n or post on l4m3r2 forums, or stuff like that
	Triskelios	rarman: I'm 4 doors down from the lab that wrote mod_vhand
	spike	Triskelios: can I come visiting? :P
	rarman	Trisk: cool
	Triskelios	rarman: security is lenient, but in general that's unfortunately how scripts expect things to be. partially securing the OS helps
	rarman	Trisk: can apache cache a large directory structure for quick retrieval -is it threadsafe with php5? can it share vars across sessions and threads?
	rarman	Trisk: say no to aolserver fud --> https://openacs.org/about/what-is-openacs
	spike	have u got a tshirt with that on? ;D
	rarman	Trisk: does apache support Tcl?
	spike	"Say no to aolserver fud"
	spike	eheh
	rarman	;)
	spike	goes checking cafeexpress
	Triskelios	s/vhand/backhand/ up there
	Triskelios	but there are apache modules for content caching (both static and dynamic)
	Triskelios	not sure about threading behaviour with php
	spike	not sure about hreading behaviour *of* php ;)
	Triskelios	oi
	Triskelios	looks like php is thread-safe, but uses libraries that aren't and doesn't try to deal with that. fun
	Triskelios	hm, and tcl.apache.org
	rarman	trisk: I was unaware...
	rarman	trisk: interesting... how good is apache with a site with 1000 folders?
	rarman	10,000 files, and a large postgres/oracle db?
	Triskelios	rarman: just fine. we have more like 100,000
	Triskelios	we have postgres and mysql for various things
	spike	*ding*
	spike	that's the magic word for today
	spike	postgres :)
	rarman	sounds like apache is more powerful since I last checked ;)
	spike	Triskelios: u won a question :)
	rarman	spike: heh
	Triskelios	we've been running apache for 6 or 7 years
	spike	I'm about to give you ur prize... hang on
	rarman	Trisk: I'll have to bring this abck to the OpenACS community... maybe we could pull off an apache port of our portal toolkit
	rarman	that would be very cool
	Triskelios	*shrugs*

But don't get too excited -- there's lots of things that don't quite work, 80/20 rule etc. I got many pages/api calls working pretty quickly (including most ns_* and nsv procs) across many platforms (tclhttpd/iis/tclsh/apache1.3x+2.x), but then got majorly bogged down with the details and abandoned the effort.

Ultimately I think Malte's right... but it's fun to dream.

I thought it might be interesting, since I wasn't aware that apache had those features, and Triskelios informed me of them.

Just wanted to bring it to the community as a request for comment.

Feel free to delete the post if there's some issue of relevancy.

Ryan