Chris - many thanks indeed. After all the research I've done on this - about KeepAlive, RequestsPerChild and the like - I'm surprised I haven't come across the advice from the PHP team before (and the myriad of commentators on the topic). And like you, I am even more surprised that there is no guaranteed stable PHP module in Apache 2 on the NT-based versions of Windows. I had specifically used Apache 2 because it was the first line of Apache web server releases approved by the Apache team (AFAIAA) to run on Windows.
I was planning on upgrading to Apache 2.2.4 and then using a custom php module (compiled by the good people at Apache Lounge) to link to PHP 5.1.6. However I am changing my mind now - from what you say, and the related web links I have now discovered as a result, I don't think this will help.
Anyway, thank you for your advice. I am less keen to use IIS as I am not convinced about the solidity of PHP5 upon it and the completeness of mod_rewrite replacements, although I'll go down this route if I have to. Apache 1.3 is a possibility, but I thought that it wasn't particularly recommended for a Win environment? In any case support for it is waning fast, in my view, if it hasn't waned completely already.
Now if I were to discount these two items, it leaves the FastCGI option (we already use eAccelerator, so reliability is more important than speed at present). I didn't manage to get FastCGI working on a dev server, but found the alternative FCGI perfectly easy to install and I've had no troubles with it under low load. Unfortunately setting this up in a new Apache instance on our live server stopped the existing instance (threading problems and server instability are equally likely - it's an old box) so I am tempted to schedule some downtime next week to stop the live server entirely and to test FCGI in isolation.
One last question - and I have a feeling the answer is going to be 'no' - is it possible to use Apache in prefork mode on Windows? If this is possible but would require recompilation, there may well be someone on the net who has created this binary already. I have just installed Apache2 on Linux (sadly not available for live apps) and it just *feels* much more solid.
Joined: 2007-03-01
Chris - many thanks indeed. After all the research I've done on this - about KeepAlive, RequestsPerChild and the like - I'm surprised I haven't come across the advice from the PHP team before (and the myriad of commentators on the topic). And like you, I am even more surprised that there is no guaranteed stable PHP module in Apache 2 on the NT-based versions of Windows. I had specifically used Apache 2 because it was the first line of Apache web server releases approved by the Apache team (AFAIAA) to run on Windows.
I was planning on upgrading to Apache 2.2.4 and then using a custom php module (compiled by the good people at Apache Lounge) to link to PHP 5.1.6. However I am changing my mind now - from what you say, and the related web links I have now discovered as a result, I don't think this will help.
Anyway, thank you for your advice. I am less keen to use IIS as I am not convinced about the solidity of PHP5 upon it and the completeness of mod_rewrite replacements, although I'll go down this route if I have to. Apache 1.3 is a possibility, but I thought that it wasn't particularly recommended for a Win environment? In any case support for it is waning fast, in my view, if it hasn't waned completely already.
Now if I were to discount these two items, it leaves the FastCGI option (we already use eAccelerator, so reliability is more important than speed at present). I didn't manage to get FastCGI working on a dev server, but found the alternative FCGI perfectly easy to install and I've had no troubles with it under low load. Unfortunately setting this up in a new Apache instance on our live server stopped the existing instance (threading problems and server instability are equally likely - it's an old box) so I am tempted to schedule some downtime next week to stop the live server entirely and to test FCGI in isolation.
One last question - and I have a feeling the answer is going to be 'no' - is it possible to use Apache in prefork mode on Windows? If this is possible but would require recompilation, there may well be someone on the net who has created this binary already. I have just installed Apache2 on Linux (sadly not available for live apps) and it just *feels* much more solid.