I've been looking at the existing web server integration stuff (both mod_jk
and mod_webapp), and it seems to me that there is one significant piece
missing - a NameTrans directive that takes its configuration from a separate
file.
I know I'm talking iPlanet here - but that's where my experience is.
At the moment I'm running a bodged together iPlanet / Tomcat 4 combo where
the servlet requests are http-proxied to Tomcat, but I need to to the
NameTrans part myself:
NameTrans fn="assign-name" from="/myapp/firsturl" name="tomcat"
NameTrans fn="assign-name" from="/myapp/secondurl" name="tomcat"
Obviously you don't want hundreds on NameTrans directives to maintain in
obj.conf, and you don't want your Java developers fiddling with your web
server configuration.
I don't do Apache, so I don't know whether there is an equivalent issue
there.
It seems to me that a single configuration file that is read at web server
init time, that tells the web server where the webapps are, what url
prefixes they map to, and whether they are distributable etc would be a good
idea.
Something like:
<deployment>
<connection name="serverone" type="warp">
<host>hostone</host>
<port>8081</port>
</connection>
<connection name="servertwo" type="warp">
<host>hosttwo</host>
<port>8081</port>
</connection>
<webapp name="myapp" distributable="no">
<url-mapping>/myapp</url-mapping>
<connections>
<connection>serverone</connection>
<connection>servertwo</connection>
</connections>
</webapp>
</deployment>
Does this sound sensible? I think I want this for myself anyway, so I might
see if I can knock it up. The only complex thing would be parsing the file
(I want to stick to C - so I don't know what I'd do about XML parsing). Does
anyone have any opinions? Am I duplicating any previous work?
