NAME

Slides: The Next Generation: mod_perl 2.0

About

* Why rewrite?

* What's new in Apache 2.0

* What's new in Perl 5.6.0 - 5.8.0

* What's new in mod_perl 2.0

* Installing mod_perl 2.0

* Configuring mod_perl 2.0

* Migrating from 1.0 to 2.0

* New Phases

* Protocol Handlers

* Filter Handlers

Thank you!

* TicketMaster rules!!!

Versioning Convention

* To make things simple here and in the new docs:

* mod_perl:

* * mod_perl 1.0 (not mod_perl 1.xx)

* * mod_perl 2.0 (not mod_perl 2.0.xx)

* Apache:

* * Apache 1.3

* * Apache 2.0

Why the 2.0 Rewrite?

* Too patchy (6 years!), backward compatibility with:

* * Apache 1.3.0 - 1.3.27

* * Perl 5.003 - 5.8.0

* mod_perl 2.0 starts afresh with:

* * Apache 2.0 (incompatible with Apache 1.3)

* * Perl 5.6.0 (has semi-thread-safe Perl Interpreters)

* * Threaded mpms: 5.8.0 (really thread-safe)

* A new build system autogenerates the code used to

* * autogenerates the code that is used to ...

* * ...

* * which generates the final code ...

* * ... and it all works

* Automatically supports new Apache APIs

The Apache::Test Framework

* The core:

All tests successful.
Files=75, Tests=504, 65 wallclock secs ...

* Any Perl module needing mod_perl 1.0 or 2.0

* Any Apache module (both 1.3 and 2.0), PHP, Python, C...

* Already used by httpd-test to test Apache!!!

New in Apache 2.0

* Apache Portable Runtime

* Multi Processing Model modules (MPMs).

* * processes: prefork

* * threads: worker, leader, perchild...

* * os: mpmt_os2, netware, winnt, beos...

* Protocol Modules (HTTP, POP3, SMTP...)

* I/O Filtering

* Bucket Brigades

* Parsed Configuration Tree

* New Hook Scheme (Flexible, Order-able)

* Optional Functions

New in Perl m/5\.(6|8)\.\d/

* Thread-safe Interpreter (5.8.0) via perl_clone()

* Subroutine attributes:

sub handler : FilterRequestHandler { ... }

* CORE::GLOBAL:: subs overriding CORE::

* PerlIO layers => APR::PerlIO:

open my $fh, "<:APR", $file, $r;

* I18n: Unicode, UTF...

New in mod_perl 2.0

* All the new Apache 2.0 and Perl 5.6.0+ features

* Plus its own new features

Threads Support

* Thread Interpreters Pool

* scalar @perl_interpreters != scalar @apache_threads

* * no need for front-end/back-end separation

* Two classes of interpreters: parent and clone

* parent: preload modules and perl_clone() clones

* clones: do the real work

* * mutable data is copied by the clone

* * read-only data such as the syntax tree is shared

* * clone pools are FIFO => memory re-use

Thread-safety

* Manipulating Perl data is thread-safe (5.8.0)

push(), map(), chomp(), ...

* The rest, depends on the underlying implementation

localtime(), readdir(), srand(), ...

* Thread-safe but Process-scoped

chdir(), umask(), chroot(), ...

* See perlthrtut(3)

Accessing the Modules

* mod_perl 2.0 Perl libs go to Apache2/

* Adjust @INC:

use Apache2 ();

# @INC before:
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i686-linux-thread-multi
# @INC after:
/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i686-linux-thread-multi/Apache2

PerlRequire'd Startup File

use Apache2 ();
# use Apache::compat (); # 1.0 compat

use lib qw(/home/httpd/perl);

use ModPerl::Util (); #for CORE::GLOBAL::exit

use Apache::RequestRec ();
use Apache::RequestIO ();
use Apache::RequestUtil ();

use Apache::Server ();
use Apache::ServerUtil ();
use Apache::Connection ();
use Apache::Log ();

use APR::Table ();

use ModPerl::Registry ();

use Apache::Const -compile => ':common';
use APR::Const -compile => ':common';

1;

PerlOptions Directive

* Disable mod_perl for a given VirtualHost:

<VirtualHost ...>
    PerlOptions -Enable
</VirtualHost>

* Give the VirtualHost its own interpreter pool.

<VirtualHost ...>
    PerlOptions +Clone
    PerlInterpStart 2
    PerlInterpMax 2
</VirtualHost>

* Run different versions of the same module:

<VirtualHost ...>
    ServerName dev1
    PerlOptions +Parent
    PerlSwitches -Mblib=/home/dev1/lib/perl
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost ...>
    ServerName dev2
    PerlOptions +Parent
    PerlSwitches -Mblib=/home/dev2/lib/perl
</VirtualHost>

* disallow certain handlers/options

<VirtualHost ...>
    PerlOptions -Authen -Authz -Access -Sections
</VirtualHost>

* Or maybe everything but the response handler:

<VirtualHost ...>
    PerlOptions None +Response
</VirtualHost>

* Resolve Perl*Handlers at startup time:

PerlOptions +Autoload
PerlResponseHandler Apache::Magick

* Disable the global request_rec (Apache->request)

<Location ...>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlOptions -GlobalRequest
    ...
</Location>

References

* All the information can be found at:

http://perl.apache.org/docs/

* Further Questions?

* * Grab me at the corridor and demand answers

* * Ask at modperl@perl.apache.org

A shameless plug

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perl -MCPAN -e shell
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