[Server-devel] BOF on apachecon Amsterdam

[Marten Vijn]

Hi

I am preparing the bof, thanks for your input! 

see http://wiki.apache.org/apachecon/

when it's online again,

I ll be on #schoolserver and might some help for anwering some question.

time are not sure since i can't access their wiki. 

expected time: next wednessday 20:30 CET

kind regards,
Marten


On Tue, 2008-04-01 at 12:34 -0400, Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 12:03 PM, Aaron Huslage <huslage at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >  - We are running memory-hog-webapps based on mod_php and mod_python
> > > in prefork mode... but we have very strict memory constraints. Any
> > > hints on how to compile apache (on Fedora and Debian) so that the
> > > memory is released to the OS pool rather than to the child process'
> > > private 'free' pool?
> >
> > I don't think this is currently possible.
> 
> With alternative mem handling libs it has *always* been possible, but
> often unstable/unreliable on linux. Current apache programmers can -
> hopefully - shed some light into the current situation as now we have
> more alternatives. It may be that php and python are even ready for
> threaded worker model. Or that dietlibc has a different malloc. Or
> that someone has a special custom malloc we can use.
> 
> Or perhaps FastCGI is the way -- hopefully not ;-)
> 
> Note - I hate to speculate ahead. Hopefully the apache crowd will tell
> us what the state of things is.
> 
> > Another web server can probably do
> > this (Lighttpd?), but that comes with its own issues.
> 
> Exactly. And we lose what apache brings to the party.
> > One way to be to run the CoDeeN code. I'm sure they would be willing to work
> > with us, since I know they want to open source the code.
> 
> ISTR jg telling me they are using a licensed proprietary proxy but I
> could be wrong. Are you in contact with them? I would love to see them
> around here :-)
> 
> > Otherwise, running
> > mod_proxy on the XS with no caching
> 
> The majority of XSs will have a horrible connection - we _need_ very
> smart caching working together with the upstream proxy as smartly as
> humanely possible.
> 
> > What needs to be configurable from mod_perl? What custom behaviours are we
> > talking about, or is this just a general ask for future needs?
> 
> We want
> 
>  - The caching and handling of 1.1 cache-headers to be solid.
> 
>  - The upstream proxy to be able to pass hints to the xs proxy of
> files to prefetch. These hints would initially be of popular resouces
> across schools and content we intend to "push" out, for example, for
> sw or content updates.
> 
>  - For some content, we may even add a SHA1 as a "local etag" to stuff
> that looks unchanging but doesn't carry etags, the upstream proxy can
> then buffer the response and save retransmission if the SHA1s match.
> This would allow us to workaround web apps that aren't cache-smart. As
> long as we can do this quickly - before http times out - we can save a
> ton of traffic. HTTP timeouts and other issues limit how much we can
> do here, but even within those constraints, I think we can do a lot.
> 
> mod_proxy circa 1.3.x was completely closed to mod_perl and didn't
> even play well with other modules. It was excellent as a "standalone"
> module but it did not respect the request phases, so you could not
> combine it with authen/authz handlers from other modules.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> 
> 
> m
-- 

Marten Vijn
http://martenvijn.nl
http://wifisoft.org
http://opencommunitycamp.org