[PROPOSAL] Server Module Repository

[Christopher Cain <cc...@mhsoftware.com>]

I'm awaiting final word from Costin on the specific design of my
prompter 3.3 Interceptor (I know it's a rather long e-mail and will
require some thought, so I'm not complaining, just stating the status of
things). I have already begun creating the 4.0 listener as well. In
order to try and time things right, I'll go ahead and broach the Feliner
thing now.

It was suggested that a new common repository be created for generic
server modules (plugins, whatever you want to call them). I personally
think it's the right way to go, so I'll now officially ask for it. I'm
not sure at what point in the CVS tree it should be inserted ("commons",
maybe?), but here's kind of the general layout I had in mind.

.. {whatever parent dir}
  \_ server
    \_ plugins ("modules", whatever)
      \_ 3.x
      \_ 4.x
      \_ noarch (or whatever the container-agnostic dir should be
called)
      \_ util

Things like Feliner, which are generic support classes or "building
blocks" for the actual modules, could live in "utils". Then you have the
three separate categories of module: 3.x (only), 4.x (only), and noarch
(which will work with either container). I also, personally, think that
there should be a TomcatModule (again, whatever on the name) interface,
in "plugins", that defines a few basic methods, such as getModName,
getModVersion, getModCategory. That would allow us to do some cool stuff
with the admin context, such as display a list of the
currently-installed server modules and their respective versions, sorted
by category ("Config", "Request Processing", etc.) What are everyone's
thoughts on this?

In a separate but related matter ... Feliner. I only got one person's
feedback ... :( ... and zero platform tests. I'll go ahead and test
tonight with the 1.1.8 JDK, both Windoze and RH 7.1. I have an extra
test box sitting around at my house, so I'll try and install Solaris 8
and test with both JDKs on that. I have absolutely no experience with
Solaris, so it will probably take me several nights to even get it to
the point where I am ready to test. If one of you Solaris cats wants to
save me a few nights of furious crash course learning, you could just
download it (thread: "Command-Line Utility Attached - Feedback
Requested"), compile it, and run the tests (it's really quite easy and
*very* well documented in the included API docs under the "main()"
method). I am going to install Solaris on that box anyway, but I will
probably have a _much_ better initial Solaris experience if there is not
a sense of urgency to the whole thing.

Once it's tested on these three platforms with both JDKs, would you
committers be comfortable committing it? In case you haven't had a
chance to look over the source yet, there's not really alot of code
there and it is almost painfully well-documented :-)

Regards,

Christopher