[SATLUG] consider lighttpd

[R. Tyler Ballance]

On Nov 3, 2006, at 7:57 PM, Robert Pearson wrote:

>> Anyway, lighttpd has almost the same flexibility as apache - more
>> in some ways, less in some ways.  It also is much faster, doesn't
>> keep a pool of children around all the time, and it only uses about
>> 1MB of memory for each server when not serving.
>>
>> Anyway, I just wanted people to know about it, I'm pretty satisfied
>> so far.
>
> Thanks and Thanks for the second, Ernest.
> I've been looking for something I could use in place of Apache for a
> software IDE.
> Apache is great, and for final testing is absolutely necessary, but
> while you are writing and debugging code the Security risk is, IMHO,
> large.
> Maybe it is larger with something like lighttpd. We will find out?

I think its worth pointing out that Apache 2 isn't really a "web"  
server per se, it has HTTP serving functionality, but it is more  
targeted at being a flexible, modular server for use in a wide  
variety of sectors, not just web serving. Subversion has made good  
use of this modularity in my opinion.

Regarding the pool of children sucking up memory, I believe this no  
longer true. A friend who runs a decent sized hosting operation noted  
that the recent OpenBSD 4.0 OS and ports upgrade cut out a lot of  
Apache procs that would stay resident and suck VM.

For my uses, Apache still kicks ass in the serving market, if its  
Ruby on Rails, Mongrel, but for most everything else, Apache is on  
top in market share for a reason :)



Regarding the Plan9 comment, so what? I'm sure that I can't find a  
remote root exploit in Plan9 not because its not popular, but because  
its an old project with years of engineering behind it. After meeting  
some of the guys behind the Apache Software Foundation a few weeks  
ago at ApacheCon, I think somebody's got to mention that the Apache  
HTTP Server is a robust, mature project, and that's one of the  
reasons lots of people choose it. Popularity doesn't equate to  
security, take Linux for example, good engineering equates to  
security, timeline or use has little to do with it, period.


Oh yeah, that's right, I just ended a sentence with both the word and  
the punctuation mark :-P


Cheers

R. Tyler Ballance: Lead Mac Developer at bleep. software
contact: tyler at bleepsoft.com | jabber: tyler at jabber.geekisp.com