Any comments on the reliability of Tomcat 5.5's HTTPS implementation?

[Richard Mundell <ri...@trgrp.com>]

Hi there,

I'm running an application with the following configuration:

   Servlets on Tomcat 4.1 --> mod_jk --> Apache 2.x with mod_ssl --> [HTTPS]
--> Internet Explorer 6

I've experienced continual problems with intermittent page and image loading
problems which seems to relate to mod_ssl crashing Apache when Internet
Explorer uses HTTP/1.1 keep-alives. Even with keep-alives turned off it
generates intermittent problems, often made worse by certain user's
firewalls and proxy infrastructure.

We're planning to update to Tomcat 5.5 and take Apache, mod_jk and mod_ssl
completely out of the equation, ie:

   Servlets on Tomcat 5.5 --> [HTTPS] --> Internet Explorer

So far in my test environment this environment seems far more reliable and
also quicker (presumably because there's less server software between my
Java code and the user's browser).

Does anyone on this list have any experience with this configuration? I'm
interested in comments of its reliability.

BTW, this is running on a Windows 2000 platform with JRE 1.5.x (this may be
pertinent as the Apache 2.x/mod_ssl implementation isn't officially
supported on Windows).

Any comments appreciated!


Richard


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: tomcat-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: tomcat-user-help@jakarta.apache.org

Re: Any comments on the reliability of Tomcat 5.5's HTTPS implementation?

[Jason Bainbridge <jb...@gmail.com>]

n Apr 8, 2005 9:57 AM, Richard Mundell <ri...@trgrp.com> wrote:
> 

> We're planning to update to Tomcat 5.5 and take Apache, mod_jk and mod_ssl
> completely out of the equation, ie:
> 
>    Servlets on Tomcat 5.5 --> [HTTPS] --> Internet Explorer
> 
> So far in my test environment this environment seems far more reliable and
> also quicker (presumably because there's less server software between my
> Java code and the user's browser).
> 
> Does anyone on this list have any experience with this configuration? I'm
> interested in comments of its reliability.

We recently switched to Tomcat 5.5.4 (most recent when we commenced
testing) in one of our production environments as we previously had
Jrun + IIS (SSL + Integrated Authentication on IIS) and that setup was
performing VERY poorly over high latency links like satellite due to
Jrun's lack of HTTP/1.1 so unfortunately I can't compare to an Apache
+ Tomcat setup but I can say though having SSL in Tomcat, along with
jCIFS for the windows authentication and turning compression on has
given us huge performance increases.

As I had to implement a pilot of Tomcat on our current Production box
I had to stick with the JRE we had there (1.4.1_02) and use the
compatibility JARs, the application is a legacy servlet based one that
accesses an Oracle database and so could be written better for
performance reasons but under Tomcat we could still put it under a
load of 300 concurrent users without it breaking a sweat where with
the previous configuration it would struggle with 150.

That Tomcat server is actually more responsive when accessed from
across the Atlantic than a local Jrun + IIS server we have, so I have
been quite impressed with it and so has the client! I haven't had any
complaints on reliability to date, JCIFS was giving us problems due to
some DC's switching to 2003 forcing us to setup pre-authentication but
other than that it continuously performs quite well.

Regards,
-- 
Jason Bainbridge
http://kde.org - webmaster@kde.org
Personal Site - http://jasonbainbridge.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: tomcat-user-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: tomcat-user-help@jakarta.apache.org