Re: [input] mod_perl and ISPs in the real world

[Shane Nay <sh...@isupportlive.com>]

Well, as most of us know mod_perl doesn't really lend itself well to the
"hosted" world because of the way it operates.  However there is I think a
conceivable solution.  This might sound a little crazy (or a lot), but I've
been messing around with vmware, and it's really cool/stable.  One thought is
instead of hosting a "site" or a "machine" host a "virtual machine".  It might
be more economical to use one of those IBM s/who knows how many machines that
can run many many copies of linux internally for large hosts, but for a smaller
hosting service they might want to give VMWare a shot.  I have no personal
connection with VMware, but it is a really cool product and I have been testing
a lot of different things with it and it's VERY impressive.

Of course hosting on a virtual machine wouldn't be $40/month..., but at least
you _could_ have modperl and a machine of your own without paying the hefty
cost of a colocation service.  (You can restrict memory for each VM, and each
VM has bios and all that jazz..., check it out vmware.com)

Thanks,
Shane.

(Credit where credit is due: This was originally Josh Chamas's idea)

On Wed, 28 Jun 2000, you wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In the mod_perl Guide's chapter "mod_perl for ISPs" that you can read at
> http://perl.apache.org/guide/multiuser.html I go through various scenarios
> that can be deployed by ISPs who want to provide mod_perl services. The
> chapter talks about things to watch after, security issues and similar
> stuff.
> 
> In one of the future articles for apachetoday.com I want to cover this
> issue more extensively, educating ISPs to provide mod_perl services, thus
> allowing more users to join the wonderful world where mod_perl rules. What
> I really miss is real world testimonies, experiences and probably new
> implementation ideas not covered in the chapter.
> 
> If you work for an ISP that already successfully provides mod_perl
> services (preferably not co-locating, co-locating is a no-brainer) please
> help me present various practical solutions to make mod_perl more
> accessible to people who want to use it online and cannot yet afford a
> co-location scheme.
> 
> If you know about people, who work for an ISP who does that, but are not
> subscribed to this list, please forward this request to them.
> 
> Your input is very important... and hey there is nothing better than a
> free advertisemnt and a few more new clients :)
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________
> Stas Bekman              JAm_pH     --   Just Another mod_perl Hacker
> http://stason.org/       mod_perl Guide  http://perl.apache.org/guide 
> mailto:stas@stason.org   http://perl.org     http://stason.org/TULARC
> http://singlesheaven.com http://perlmonth.com http://sourcegarden.org
-- 

Re: [input] mod_perl and ISPs in the real world

[darren chamberlain <da...@boston.com>]

David Hodgkinson (daveh@hodgkinson.org) said something to this effect:
> Hmmm...what about a variant of the proxied mod_perl?
> 
> Picture a lite bulk front-end apache doing the usual stuff then
> proxying the mod_perl stuff back to a serverly (chargeably?)
> process-limited apache with a different httpd.conf per site?

We are using a decent solution to handle hosting for employees personal
domains, although it is on a pretty small scale:

A single public address, with all the names pointing to this address. It has
mod_proxy and mod_rewrite enabled (and very little else) and each VirtualHost
section is merely a ProxyPass directive.

The actual domains themselves are running on dedicated high ports on virtual
addresses attached eth0 (eth0:1 is bound to 192.168.0.1, eth0:2 is bound to 
192.168.0.2, etc). The VirtualHost directives look like, sometimes with a 
ServerAlias directive, but never more than that:

<VirtualHost 12.34.56.78:80>
  ServerName www.foobar.com
  ProxyPass  / http://192.168.0.2:8000/
</VirtualHost>

And each server (running on dedicated private addresses, on high ports so
that the user can start and stop the server without root access) maintains
its own configs and setup. We get a bunch of traffic, with 6 hosted domains,
and about 45 httpd processes. The server is a Penguin Computer box (plug!
plug!) with a PIII-500 and 128 Megs of RAM; a decent box, but not a huge
one.

darren

-- 
Kill Ugly Radio

Re: [input] mod_perl and ISPs in the real world

[David Hodgkinson <da...@hodgkinson.org>]

Shane Nay <sh...@isupportlive.com> writes:

> Well, as most of us know mod_perl doesn't really lend itself well to the
> "hosted" world because of the way it operates....

Hmmm...what about a variant of the proxied mod_perl?

Picture a lite bulk front-end apache doing the usual stuff then
proxying the mod_perl stuff back to a serverly (chargeably?)
process-limited apache with a different httpd.conf per site?

Nah, not good, you still have to budget a fair few meg per mod_perl
site.


-- 
Dave Hodgkinson,                             http://www.hodgkinson.org
Editor-in-chief, The Highway Star           http://www.deep-purple.com
      Apache, mod_perl, MySQL, Sybase hired gun for, well, hire
  -----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [input] mod_perl and ISPs in the real world

[Malcolm Beattie <mb...@sable.ox.ac.uk>]

Shane Nay writes:
> Well, as most of us know mod_perl doesn't really lend itself well to the
> "hosted" world because of the way it operates.  However there is I think a
> conceivable solution.  This might sound a little crazy (or a lot), but I've
> been messing around with vmware, and it's really cool/stable.  One thought is
> instead of hosting a "site" or a "machine" host a "virtual machine".  It might
> be more economical to use one of those IBM s/who knows how many machines that
> can run many many copies of linux internally for large hosts, but for a smaller
> hosting service they might want to give VMWare a shot.  I have no personal
> connection with VMware, but it is a really cool product and I have been testing
> a lot of different things with it and it's VERY impressive.

I'm currently writing SILK (Simultaneous Instances of the Linux Kernel)
which is a combination of a tweaked Linux kernel hypervisor and a
tweaked Linux guest kernel. You can run multiple guest kernels under
the hypervisor and do the sort of basic stuff that VM/ESA (the IBM
S/390 product) and VMWare, with potential for fancier stuff if things
go nicely. I mentioned it on the linux-kernel and linux-390 mailing
lists so it's probably in archives somewhere. In a few months IBM
will be releasing a "run Linux kernels only" cut down version of VM
for free (or nearly so) for S/390 and IBM's targets definitely
include ISPs hosting lots of "virtual machines" on a nice reliable,
easily-adminned single large system. (Most of you have probably
seen various recent Linux/390 articles and the headline figure of
over 40000 concurrent Linux instances on one S/390, each running an
Apache daemon or similar). Cool stuff.

--Malcolm

-- 
Malcolm Beattie <mb...@sable.ox.ac.uk>
Unix Systems Programmer
Oxford University Computing Services