[VOTE] mod_proxy in?

[Chuck Murcko <ch...@topsail.org>]

I wanted to let things settle down a bit before popping this one, but 
with DSO,  HTTP protocol, and multiprotocol changes on the way I think 
it's a good time. Plus the multiprotocol thread.

[feel free to cut here when answering]

When mod_proxy got bumped from httpd, some requirements were set up for 
it to come back in. A lot of ideas got thrown about for how to do a 
proxy. I also remember Ryan scratching his head at the hackathon proxy 
meeting and saying "I thought I wrote these requirements so they'd be 
hard to do!"

So now seems a good time to vote on putting the proxy back, I think. 
We've got to catch up the STATUS file a bit on the proxy after the last 
few days, as well.

Here are the original requirements, and some discussion about issues 
other than  httpd-2.0:

     * Eventual reintegration into httpd-2.0. The basic criteria are:
         a) The code compiles and runs as often as any code in the tree
         b) The functionality makes sense for an HTTP proxy
         c) There is an active maintainer who is or can become an ASF
            member.

a) seems more than satisfied. We have the makings of the generic 
protocol router Dean once talked about, thanks to Graham's outstanding 
coding feats of the last several weeks. Protocol filter stacks are now 
hook'ed into the multiplexer in mod_proxy.c instead of being hardwired. 
FTP and CONNECT are working as well as HTTP/1.1 proxy (though there are 
still things to fix/extend, like being a DSO, and some FTP issues).

b) seems to be so, but we are moving toward a generic protocol router 
model that developers can just add protocols and translations to, 
without worrying so much about module mechanics.

c) seems to have some 4: Graham Leggett, Victor Orlikowski, myself, and 
Ian Holsman testing and lending his brain regularly. Plus the odd patch 
donation.

At the hackathon, we also discussed how to do 1.3.x support somewhere 
other than on dev.apache.org.

Consensus seemed to be move the patches over to /dist on apache.org in 
an appropriate directory for the proxy, as we'd accumulate patches as we 
accumulate 1.3.x versions.

Consensus also seemed to be that we could use a cacheless mod_proxy as 
part of httpd at this time (though Graham's working on a caching idea 
we've discussed on modproxy-dev@).

There's actually been more accomplished with mod_proxy than I had hoped 
in this timeframe, thanks to Graham's and Victor's hard work.

So, what do you think?

Chuck Murcko
Topsail Group
http://www.topsail.org/