My take on communications:
- use ASCII communications (via messages) to a port just like
many other internet services. This makes it easy to debug, expand and
service with different interface mechanisms. SNMP is good for
monitoring and LDAP is a good choice for authentication perhaps but
that's a separate issue.
My take on info-storage:
- for a single machine, use the conf files in place. Just parse
and rewrite them. Make the conf system drop in without changing a
working configuration. You only need something more sophisticated when
you're working with more than one machine and while that's a worthy goal
it's not necessary upfront and with a good design should be able to be
appended to a working conf server without major revisions to Apache or
the server itself. That said, a database driven system working across
multiple machines would make Apache god-like in quality but first things
first.
(A more detailed tirade on this may be found at
http://butler.disa.mil/ApacheConfig :)
Justin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
