mod_rewrite compatible cherokee module would be ubercool and i believe would open cherokee to a whole lot of people who are tied up with apache for mass hosting.
On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 2:16 PM, Marcus Don <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi > > Apologies in advance for the length of this email, please bear with me :) > > First an introduction: I'm senior manager of R&D for a group of ISPs > including register.it, names.co.uk, nominalia.es, amen.fr, register365.com > , > and simplyhosting.com. As a group, we host over 1.6 million domains and > 600,000 web sites. > > Currently, we have 3 shared hosting clusters in Italy, the UK and Ireland. > The Italian platform is based on Apache and the UK and Irish platforms are > based on Zeus Web Server. We also have a legacy platform, inherited from a > recent acquisition, based on Apache and H-Sphere, which we are currently > migrating to Zeus. > > Until recently, we have been very happy with our choice of Zeus Web Server. > We have gained a solid reputation in the UK for having a very > high-performing and reliable platform, and we have won the UK ISP Award > (ISPA) for Best Shared Hosting for the last 3 years running. However, we > are > now considering migrating away from ZWS for the following reasons: > > 1) It hasn't been updated since 2007, and Zeus will not commit to any > future > updates other than security patches. > 2) It makes commercial sense for us to use the same technology everywhere > in > the group. > 3) Zeus does not support mod_rewrite. > > Given these requirements, and the fact we are already using it in Italy, > the > obvious solution would be to use Apache on all platforms. However, I am > seriously concerned that the performance would suffer as a result, so I'm > currently studying the feasibility of other options. > > The need for mod_rewrite is a practical, commercial requirement based on > the > fact that many 3rd-party applications require rewrite rules, and the vast > majority only work with mod_rewrite without the intervention of a > developer. > This has always been something of issue for us, and the growing popularity > of open source software among non-developers is greatly exacerbating the > problem. Also, we now provide Softaculous for our customers, but we've had > to disable many of the 150+ applications because of their reliance on > mod_rewrite. > > Furthermore, when we started migrating the H-Sphere platform, we found an > unusually high proportion of domains are using mod_rewrite. During previous > migrations, we have replaced them with Zeus rewrite scripts, but this time > the numbers are just too high. > > So, we recently employed an experienced C developer to write an ISAPI > filter > to replicate exactly the behaviour of mod_rewrite under Zeus. However, > although this works perfectly in our development environment (even under > extremely heavy loads), after a few days on the live platform, something > goes very wrong. After several weeks of debugging, testing and reading > memory dumps, we're convinced the problem is with Zeus's ISAPI > implementation - but so far we are unable to prove it, and I'm not sure > they > would fix it even if we could! > > If you are interested, I am confident I could arrange for the source code > of > our ISAPI Rewrite module to be released to the Cherokee project for use as > an optional module. Obviously, the ISAPI layer would need to be replaced, > but this is a minor part of the code. All we ask in return is that someone > adds support for the other, mostly very simple, htaccess directives. I can > ask the original developer if he would be willing to contribute to this, > but > he doesn't work for me so I can't guarantee it. > > Without this functionality, the only other option available to us is > LiteSpeed - but I'm not keen on adopting another closed-source solution > that > isn't gaining significant market share. Also, I am convinced this is the > only major hurdle preventing other mass hosting providers from moving away > from Apache to something that scales more efficiently, such as Cherokee. > > Lastly, I have another feature suggestion to address the needs of mass > hosting - support for custom document root mapping functions. > > Currently, we use the same method as shown in the documentation - ie > /sites/e/x/example.com. This is fine for a few 10s of thousands of sites, > but not very efficient once you get beyond 100,000. A better solution is > what we use on our email clusters, which have many more users (around > 1,000,000 in Italy). This uses the last 3 characters of the MD5 checksum of > the username, like this: /email/5ab/example.com. This produces a more even > distribution and, by being wide and shallow, allows for a much more > efficient stat cache. > > Regards > > Marcus > -- > Marcus Don > Senior Manager > Research and Development > DadaPro > > Main Line: +44 (0)845 363 3630 > Main Fax: +44 (0)845 363 3631 > Tech Support: +44 (0)845 363 3634 > Email: [email protected] > Website: http://www.names.co.uk > Address: Acton House, Perdiswell Park, Worcester WR3 7GD > > This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended > solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. > > If you have received this email in error please notify the sender > immediately. If you are not the intended recipient you are notified that > disclosing, copying, distributing or taking any action in reliance on the > contents of this information is strictly prohibited. Please note that any > views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author > and > do not necessarily represent those of the company. > > Finally, the recipient should check this email and any attachments for the > presence of viruses. The company accepts no liability for any damage > caused > by any virus transmitted by this email. > > > _______________________________________________ > Cherokee mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.octality.com/listinfo/cherokee > -- Anoop P Alias (PGP Key ID : 0x014F9953) GNU system administrator http://GnuSys.net
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