None of the issues listed really have a solution. The truth is that if you are doing mass hosting, you should use Apache, the memory footprint is just too great at some point with AOLserver because you have to load each server at startup. At the very least all code for all virtual servers is in memory, at least one copy. Mass hosting of even a hundred domains becomes near impossible. AOLserver cannot be effective in that situation. Apache really is more like sshd, tcpserver, or any other daemon that is just used to startup another process.
tom jackson On Tuesday 07 August 2007 11:37, Daniël Mantione wrote: > Op Tue, 7 Aug 2007, schreef Jeff Rogers: > > Daniël Mantione wrote: > > > I think a few reasons contribute to the low popularity of AOLserver > > > * It interoperates badly with Apache. Both need port 80. While > > > solutions exits, none is ideal, and none come with "Batteries > > > included". Many people (most) cannot rely 100% on AOLserver, despite > > > ocnsidering it > > > superior for web development. > > > > I think this may be more of a marketing issue than a technical one. What > > does apache do that aolserver doesn't? > > If have had very few situations that could rely 100% on AOLserver. Be it > PHP scripts (yes, I know you can install PHP in AOLserver), multi-user > requirements or political issues. > > > Ok, there are alot of C modules written for > > apache. How many of these are in high demand? Other than the programming > > language ones which others are addressing, I'd guess very few, like > > mod_auth, mod_include, mod_fastcgi, mod_cgi, and *gag* mod_rewrite. > > AOLserver can do all of these things just fine, although as you say there > > is no 'batteries included' modules for handling some of them. > > There is no major technical issue with AOLserver. Not at all. The devil is > in the details. There are social issues at work (of which some might be > addressable with minor technical interventions). > > > > * It is bad in multi-user environments. You cannot give every use his > > > own space to develop his website in. Actually this problem seems easy > > > to solve, since AOLserver can run multiple instances of itself since > > > 4.0. > > > > You can very easily give each user his own space to develop a website in > > (e.g., ~/public_html) > > Correct, I did this on one of my systems. > > > the only problem is if they want to do things as > > themself rather than as the aolserver uid, since AFAIK setuid and threads > > do not interact well. > > ... and there is one TCL library, all databases need to be configured > globally, cgi scripts cannot be run with user permissions and more. For > multi-user systems, Apache is superior. > > > A solution could be built using nsproxy with the proxy > > running setuid as the desired user and sate interps for user ADPs or > > something along those lines but it would be a fair amount of work that no > > one seems to be asking for right now. > > Yes, this is one of the solutions. It can technically be done, in multiple > ways, it is even doable, but that is not the point. There is competition > on port 80, and you need to have a good story to convince your sysadmin > (or find concensus in your open source project) to replace Apache with > AOLserver on port 80. Again, a social issue. > > > What do you mean by running multiple instances of itself? Back in the > > old (3.4) days I used nsvhr to proxy to a few completely separate servers > > running as separate users which worked mostly ok (there were some > > lingering networking bugs in nsvhr that I was never able to squash) > > You can have one AOLserver that has multiple configuration files, TCL > libraries, ..., each serving a different domain. See > http://panoptic.com/wiki/aolserver/Virtual_Hosting > > Make this implicit (i.e. give a command line option so each user can > automatically have his own config file, tcl library, etc.), and installing > AOLserver on a server rather than Apache becomes feasible for a hosting > provider. > > > However the server tends to > > grow in memory size over time and running multiple independent servers > > just worsens the problem. > > I restart my AOLserver at 04:00 each night, which is enough to > elmininate the problem, but this is indeed an issue for current users. I > believe it has little to do with popularity, though. > > Daniël > > > -- > AOLserver - http://www.aolserver.com/ > > To Remove yourself from this list, simply send an email to > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the body of "SIGNOFF AOLSERVER" in the > email message. You can leave the Subject: field of your email blank. -- AOLserver - http://www.aolserver.com/ To Remove yourself from this list, simply send an email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> with the body of "SIGNOFF AOLSERVER" in the email message. You can leave the Subject: field of your email blank.
