Apache 2 and PHP stable yet?

"Balazs Wellisch" <balazs@neusolutions.com> wrote in
news:t1qtf.8521$ka.5710@tornado.socal.rr.com:

> I'm responsible for a number of servers running Apache 2.0 and both
> PHP 4 and 5. These machines serve well over a millinon hits per day
> each. I have not had any problems with either combination to date.
>
> The Apache 2.0, PHP 4+, MySQL 4+ setup seems very solid to me. I'm
> not sure if it's officially supported though. But than again, what
> does official support mean in the open source world anyway?

I've stuck with PHP 4.x due to the "not official for a production
environment" statement. I manage three servers, one with several
virtual domains and have had no problems either.

MySQL is at the top of my "must learn" list. Balazs, I like your
question about "official support" so I guess it's just time to try it.
Thanks, one of my servers is a "test bed" so I may have to just test
PHP 5.

> However, be sure to run it on hardware supported by your OS vendor.
> The only tough problems I've ever encountered were always due to
> unsupported hardware/driver issues.
>

Not too much of an issue with an OS like Linux as long as you don't go
for the latest and greatest in hardware. My biggest problems using
SuSE distributions are non-standard installation paths making many
"how-tos" difficult to follow.

>
> "Randell D." <reply.via.newsgroup.thanks@fiprojects.moc> wrote in
> message news:faptf.25897$OU5.11188@clgrps13...
>>
>> Folks,
>>
>> This must get asked reasonably often however I've had tried viewing
>> groups.google.com and the apache/php web pages and not found a
>> specific answer.
>>
>> Basically, is Apache 2 officially supported with PHP, and if so,
>> which version of PHP?
>>
>> The last I heard the PHP website had Apache 2 with PHP4 running for
>> something like two years, but the support was still not official
>> for a production environment.
>>
>> Thus - Is PHP still officially only supported on Apache 1.3? Or,
>> which version of PHP is considered stable for Apache2.
>>
>> Thanks - replies via newsgroup please, so all can learn,
>>
>> Randell D.
>
>
>



--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/ There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.

Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com> wrote in
news:43b965fb$0$58086$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Chung Leong wrote:
>
>> Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>> Okay, so people are supposed to make a important business decision
>> based on some messages they read on a newsgroup?
>
> Yes! It's done all the time. In fact I do it all the time!

I have for years. Even with big name software. Have you ever tried to
get support from Novell or Microsoft? Much easier to use Google which
will often lead to the answer from *a newsgroup.* As far as decisions
as to what to use, get into the proper newsgroups before making the
decision, read and learn. It's not too difficult after reading a while
to detect who knows things and who the bozos are.

Then make some informed decisions.

>> Jesus. The big issue is not whether it actually works but who's
>> responsible when it doesn't.
>
> Ah no, not at all. If the software works then nobody needs to worry
> about being responsible when it doesn't because it does. This is
> simple logic. Are you sure you're a real programmer?

If it (whatever it is) doesn't work, blame Bill[1], the ultimate evil
in the world[2]. ;)

>> If I'm pushing a setup that's described as experimental and
>> something goes wrong, who's responsible? Me.
>
> Then test it. Or spending thousands or millions of dollars on
> inferior off the shelf software that - guess what? - has bugs too.
> Some of this off the shelf software with their support contracts and
> all are based off of Open Source stuff anyway (e.g. IBM/Rational's
> web server software, called RWP, is basically Apache).

Test servers work wonders.

>
>> Seriously, how long does this "experiment" have to last?

The "web" is still an experiment. Better not use it, it's full of
bugs.

[1] Bill Gates is even responsible for Andrew's top posting. Outlook
brought that style on.

[2] In jest of course. Microsoft has done a lot of things incorrectly,
but they have also done some pretty decent stuff.

--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/ There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.

Balazs Wellisch wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand your point. What exactly do you see as a problem
> in the development process?

Too much emphasis on feature addition. Too little on quality assurance.
There is something wrong when the development team is talking about
what to do/break in PHP 6 when Apache 2 support in PHP 4 is still
unsettled.

> Well, sure I am generalizing since we're having a discussion about the
> merits of open source development. It is in fact a necessity for open source
> to "release" software in an experimental state. Most projects have nightly
> builds that can be downloaded, worked on and then released again. This is
> how things get done. This is why open source is more powerful. Anyone can
> download the software and contribute to its development. Potentially there
> could be tens of thousands of programmers working on a project, fix bugs,
> add features, etc. No software manufacturer can compete with that.

But we are not having a discussion about the merit of open source
development. Why are people so eager to turn every discussion into the
merit of open source?!

> It sounds to me like you're a little bitter about something that went wrong
> and perhaps you lost some of your objectivity in the process. Why don't you
> elaborate a little more on your problem? Perhaps we can help!

Not bitter, just dismayed at the direction that PHP is heading.
Paradoxically, as they try to make the technology more
"enterprise-ready," it's becoming more hobbyish. I can't give out too
much details about my own project. I can only say it is a software
deployed in some important government agencies. It's nerve-wrecking
enough making sure that my own code doesn't fail. The last thing I need
is more uncertainty. Low margin for errors and low tolerance for
risks--that I associate with an enterprise environment. Unfortunately
the PHP illuminati seem to think that enterprise-ready means namespace
and what not.

> But we are not having a discussion about the merit of open source
> development. Why are people so eager to turn every discussion into the
> merit of open source?!

Well, I was responding to '> Define "support" in the context of Open
Source.' Which sounds pretty general to me, but whatever.

> Paradoxically, as they try to make the technology more
> "enterprise-ready," it's becoming more hobbyish. I can't give out too
> much details about my own project. I can only say it is a software
> deployed in some important government agencies. It's nerve-wrecking
> enough making sure that my own code doesn't fail. The last thing I need
> is more uncertainty. Low margin for errors and low tolerance for
> risks--that I associate with an enterprise environment. Unfortunately
> the PHP illuminati seem to think that enterprise-ready means namespace
> and what not.

If you feel strongly that this is an issue that impacts a large number of
users and should be addressed by the PHP development group feel free to send
a request to their mailing list. I would be interested in knowing their
response as well.

http://www.php.net/mailing-lists.php

I'm no authority on PHP development, but I can tell you with a fair amount
of certainty that it will go in the direction of what the majority demands.
That means it may not be completely suitable for your purposes, but it may
work just fine for everyone else.

No open source product can be "enterprise ready" on its own. If you want
enterprise support, training, documentation, etc. you have to pay for it.
It's as simple as that.

Balazs

> Not too much of an issue with an OS like Linux as long as you don't go
> for the latest and greatest in hardware. My biggest problems using
> SuSE distributions are non-standard installation paths making many
> "how-tos" difficult to follow.

Well, the only problems I've encountered with Linux were always do to
hardware not fully supported by my distro. For enterprise deployments I go
with the RH ES series. That way I can rely on Red Hat to do all the testing
for me. It's well worth $300 per year. I'm sure SuSE and Novell do a good
job too. I do prefere Red Hat's layout though. Maybe it's just because I'm
used to it.

On less critical installations I go with Fedora because it gives me an
opportunity to run the latest and greatest. I've deployed PHP 5 with MySQL 5
on such systems and after a little bit of tweaking they've all been working
fine.

Balazs

Stan McCann wrote:

> [1] Bill Gates is even responsible for Andrew's top posting. Outlook
> brought that style on.

You have an odd definition of "top posting". I don't top post. I
intersperse...

Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com> wrote in news:43bdd54c$0$58113
$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Stan McCann wrote:
>
>> [1] Bill Gates is even responsible for Andrew's top posting. Outlook
>> brought that style on.
>
> You have an odd definition of "top posting". I don't top post. I
> intersperse...

Not an odd definition at all. I apologize that I attributed something
to you incorrectly.

--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/ There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.

Stan McCann wrote:

> Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com> wrote in news:43bdd54c$0$58113
> $742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:
>
>> Stan McCann wrote:
>>
>>> [1] Bill Gates is even responsible for Andrew's top posting. Outlook
>>> brought that style on.
>>
>> You have an odd definition of "top posting". I don't top post. I
>> intersperse...
>
> Not an odd definition at all. I apologize that I attributed something
> to you incorrectly.

Apology accepted. Thanks for admitting a simple mistake.
--
DUMBWAITER: one who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com> wrote in
news:43bf8aa2$0$95949$742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:

> Stan McCann wrote:
>
>> Andrew DeFaria <Andrew@DeFaria.com> wrote in news:43bdd54c$0$58113
>> $742ec2ed@news.sonic.net:
>>
>>> Stan McCann wrote:
>>>
>>>> [1] Bill Gates is even responsible for Andrew's top posting.
>>>> Outlook brought that style on.
>>>
>>> You have an odd definition of "top posting". I don't top post. I
>>> intersperse...
>>
>> Not an odd definition at all. I apologize that I attributed
>> something to you incorrectly.
>
> Apology accepted. Thanks for admitting a simple mistake.

Not a problem. I believe strongly in admitting mistakes, and we all
make them. I also believe we learn from our mistakes (lesson here is
look more carefully before naming someone). Being a teacher on the
side, I always give students the opportunity to fix their work
believing that they are learning more by fixing the mistakes.

--
Stan McCann "Uncle Pirate" http://stanmccann.us/pirate.html
Webmaster/Computer Center Manager, NMSU at Alamogordo
http://alamo.nmsu.edu/ There are 10 kinds of people.
Those that understand binary and those that don't.