NT and modules

[Alexei Kosut <ak...@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>]

The NT stuff appears to be going well. It seems to work okay on Unix,
although I haven't had a chance to try it with Windows, since i don't
have an NT box, though that may change soon. Actually, I've a
question: does it work with Windows 95 as well, or just NT? Win 95
would be a definite plus.

What I'm thinking (and see my many long-winded letters on Apache 2.0
for a continuation of this topic) is that on OSes like Windows, that
don't come with a built-in compiler, or any sort of developer tools,
as Unix does, it's probable that 99% of the people who will download
this release will download a binary release (in fact, I'd suggest that
we package an NT binary, config and docs-only release - no source -
since most people won't want it). Because of that, they won't be able
to compile in any modules (although it seems that some Unix-based
modules won't work out-of-the-box for NT - this should change for 2.0,
but I'm talking about 1.3).

Anyway, my point is that we should fix up mod_dld (or an equivalent)
for NT and include it standard in the NT built of Apache 1.3. AFAIK,
the problem with mod_dld in Unix is the lack of a standard dynamic
library-loading facility. NT has one (unless I'm vastly mistaken), so
let's make use of it. It'll be much more useful with NT than on Unix,
and will allow people to distribute NT modules for 1.3 that will be
useful to the people running it - who won't have the ability to
recompile.

I know nothing about NT programming, but it doesn't sound too
difficult - mod_dld (which uses gdld) seems to basically be about
three lines of code - find a library file, link to it, and reconfigure
the server. I think it's worthwhile to make an nt/mod_dld.c and
include it (by default).

Anyone (especially someone versed with NT development) else have any
thoughts on this?

-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Alexei Kosut <ak...@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>      The Apache HTTP Server
URL: http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~akosut/   http://www.apache.org/

Re: NT and modules

[Paul Sutton <pa...@ukweb.com>]

On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Ambarish Malpani wrote:
> Runs fine on Windows 95, other than a wierd problem that Paul Sutton
> had, where /'s didn't work when trying to spawn CGI programs, and
> he needed to convert the stuff to \'s (although /'s worked on his
> machine at work).

It could just by my home system is crappo, since Apache works fine on the
Windows 95 at work. Or maybe it is because my home machine is still
running vanilla Windows 95 without extensions such as MSIE 3 (MS
applications tend to replace parts of the OS without really telling you -
maybe MSIE included an update which fixed the spawn problem and everyone
else is using systems that have MSIE 3 on them).

//pcs

Re: NT and modules

[Ambarish Malpani <am...@isecurity.com>]

Alexei Kosut wrote:
> 
> The NT stuff appears to be going well. It seems to work okay on Unix,
> although I haven't had a chance to try it with Windows, since i don't
> have an NT box, though that may change soon. Actually, I've a
> question: does it work with Windows 95 as well, or just NT? Win 95
> would be a definite plus.

Runs fine on Windows 95, other than a wierd problem that Paul Sutton
had, where /'s didn't work when trying to spawn CGI programs, and
he needed to convert the stuff to \'s (although /'s worked on his
machine at work).

Ofcourse, if I were you, I would try to run NT on my machine rather than
95. It is more stable.

> 
> What I'm thinking (and see my many long-winded letters on Apache 2.0
> for a continuation of this topic) is that on OSes like Windows, that
> don't come with a built-in compiler, or any sort of developer tools,
> as Unix does, it's probable that 99% of the people who will download
> this release will download a binary release (in fact, I'd suggest that
> we package an NT binary, config and docs-only release - no source -
> since most people won't want it). Because of that, they won't be able
> to compile in any modules (although it seems that some Unix-based
> modules won't work out-of-the-box for NT - this should change for 2.0,
> but I'm talking about 1.3).
> 
> Anyway, my point is that we should fix up mod_dld (or an equivalent)
> for NT and include it standard in the NT built of Apache 1.3. AFAIK,
> the problem with mod_dld in Unix is the lack of a standard dynamic
> library-loading facility. NT has one (unless I'm vastly mistaken), so
> let's make use of it. It'll be much more useful with NT than on Unix,
> and will allow people to distribute NT modules for 1.3 that will be
> useful to the people running it - who won't have the ability to
> recompile.
> 

I agree with you completely about loading modules in as DLLs. It
should be pretty easy. Actually, I think this would be a better way
to do modules on the Unix's that support shared libraries too - don't
need to muck around with the build process to add a module.

+1

> I know nothing about NT programming, but it doesn't sound too
> difficult - mod_dld (which uses gdld) seems to basically be about
> three lines of code - find a library file, link to it, and reconfigure
> the server. I think it's worthwhile to make an nt/mod_dld.c and
> include it (by default).
> 
> Anyone (especially someone versed with NT development) else have any
> thoughts on this?
> 
> --
> ________________________________________________________________________
> Alexei Kosut <ak...@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>      The Apache HTTP Server
> URL: http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~akosut/   http://www.apache.org/

-- 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ambarish Malpani
Architect					       (408) 738-2040
ValiCert, Inc.				      http://www.valicert.com
333 W. El Camino Real, Suite 270
Sunnyvale, CA 94087

Re: NT and modules

[Gary Wisniewski <ga...@spidereye.com.au>]

>> It works fine with Windows 95 (at least the 1.2b10 version did).
>
>So should we stop labeling it "NT"?

There are pros and cons.  If you call it Win32, people will assume
it will work on both.  But, consider the implications with respect to
   a) services (Win95 doesn't have them)
   b) security (same deal, unless you assume you're
connected to an NTFS file system somewhere)

A production quality version of Apache needs to
take performance and security very seriously.  If people are
expecting a Win32 Apache, which will work both in the "lite"
environment of Win95 as well as NT, then it could easily
compromise the quality of the finished product by having
a lot of Win95 issues crop up and detract from time better
spent focusing on security and performance under NT.

So, my vote:
   a) Call it Apache for Windows NT to set the proper expectation.
   b) Test regularly in other Win32 environments (even Win32S)
and track the issues.  If it's not too much trouble to keep it
running smoothly there, do so.

I think users will welcome a production quality Apache which
runs on both Workstation and Server, and anybody doing
serving on W95 can take their chances.

Gary


------------------------------
Gary Wisniewski
Spider Eye Studios Pty. Ltd., Australia, +61 3 9415 6700
[Formerly GUI Online Productions]

Re: NT and modules

[Alexei Kosut <ak...@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>]

On Tue, 17 Jun 1997, Mark J Cox wrote:

> Alexei said:
> > question: does it work with Windows 95 as well, or just NT? Win 95
> > would be a definite plus.
> 
> It works fine with Windows 95 (at least the 1.2b10 version did).

So should we stop labeling it "NT"? Certainly, I'm not going to
suggest that anyone who's going to be running a web server with any
sort of traffic should be running the server under Windows 95 - NT
seems much better suited to that, but there is an expanding market for
"personal" web servers, which run on a PC and can serve a couple of
hits here and there. If Apache can run on Windows 95, we might want to
tap into that market (although I'd bet on Microsoft including such a
server in the next release of Windows). The relative complexity of
Apache's configuration system might preclude it anyway, but it's
something we might consider.

But maybe we should at least think about not labeling it as being so
NT-specific?

-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Alexei Kosut <ak...@nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us>      The Apache HTTP Server
URL: http://www.nueva.pvt.k12.ca.us/~akosut/   http://www.apache.org/

Re: NT and modules

[Mark J Cox <ma...@ukweb.com>]

Alexei said:
> question: does it work with Windows 95 as well, or just NT? Win 95
> would be a definite plus.

It works fine with Windows 95 (at least the 1.2b10 version did).  Although
it needed a slight patch in order to understand forward slashes sometimes
(I think Paul posted the patch on this list a while ago). 

Does anyone have a list of what changes between Ambarish's 1.2 port that
was on his site and the one that was commited?  I know that it replaced
Paul's readdir() replacements and removed the crypt() routine but was
anything else changed? 

Mark