Apache 2.0 vs. IIS 408
TonyG writes: "According to an item on InternetNews, the impending release of Apache 2.0 could very well mean the demise of IIS. Interestingly, the article asserts that Microsoft have already given up on IIS, the proof being its absence in XP Home and its non-standard presence in XP Pro. Apache.Net? Sounds catchy..." That's a silly argument by the internetnews.com writer - IIS isn't in the Home edition because Microsoft wants to charge more for "server" operating systems, not because they're "admitting defeat". But it's a decent look at the upcoming Apache 2.0.
Configuration (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Configuration (Score:5, Insightful)
It all depends. I'd say that for most situtions you are right - IIS is not only easier to set up, but it is a very fast web server (dynamic content). Apache, however, _can_ be easier to setup when you want to "script" say 500 small static sites. httpd.conf is not that difficult to learn, nor is it that hard to create a Perl or shell script to automate it. On the flipside, writing VBScript via ADSI to script IIS sites is a huge PITA (and performance hog). If MS would just move IIS's config out of the metabase and into some XML config file, then I think your statement would be correct accross the board.
Re:Configuration (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Funny)
Pretty much the same crowd that would need Webmin
Re:Configuration (Score:2)
That scares me (Score:3, Funny)
To me, that's like someone saying that they only 'do sex' to 'have children.'
Re:Configuration (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever we have hired consultants, they have given us products that range from mediocre to absolute crap. They have also been generally disinterested in providing after-hours support, even though they are paid for it. (Why should they be troubled at 3AM to fix something they wrote that's costing $5,000 for every minute it's broken? They're consultants. The company can do well or fail; it's no skin off their backs.)
Then, when they're long-gone, in-house types like me get a hold of their source code, SQL schema, etc. The source code is invariably coded in a style reminiscent of GW-BASIC (which, for those of you who don't know, is one of those crusty old BASIC interpreters from the mid-to-late '80s that make you use line numbers and have GOSUBs instead of functions): ultra-rigid structure, little to zero code re-use within the application, sloppy functions (if there even ARE functions), spaghetti-like style, etc. I recently looked at some utter crap left behind by a consultant. When I asked about it, I was told that someone had gone through a business requirements document with the consultant PARAGRAPH BY PARAGRAPH and just sort of threw together a hodgepodge of crap to handle it, rather than sitting down and actually thinking about how it should be programmed.
Oh yeah. The entire source listing was written with caps lock on, as was the SQL schema. BHRLHBLHRLHBLHGLHLGHRLHB!@@#@#$
So when I hear that consultants and other jerkoffs are allergic to text editors, it does not surprise me. OUGH NO!!! I HAVE TO COMPILE THE KERNEL OR APACHE!!! I'LL NEED YOU TO SIGN OFF ON THIS $5,000
Folks, if a total greenhorn (like I was a few years ago) can read a couple documents, figure out where httpd.conf lives, and tweak it (which any MORON could do, as heavily commented as it is), there is NO excuse for a so-called professional to shy away from it.
I will never - NEVER - be able to fully respect any system administrator, developer, or other technical-type IT worker who is not at least semi-proficient in some variety of UNIX (and by that I mean BSD as well as the SysV-based stuff like Linux and Solaris). It demonstrates lack of initiative and gullibility to Microsoft marketdroid drivel. In fact, if Microsoft didn't have world-class marketdroids, I probably wouldn't even be writing this paragraph. If you want to become an MCSE, more power to you, but UNIX aversion in someone who's supposed to be an IT professional strikes me the same way as a timid driver doing 15MPH up the onramp to the freeway.
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like the Windows registry to me.
Re:Configuration (Score:2)
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Informative)
Find the server in "my network places", right-click, select "manage", expand "internet information services", right-click "default website", select "home directory", change it in "local path".
Too much clicking on different widgets and popups and waiting for my tastes... I tried editing this in the registry (seems to be under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W3SVC\Para
Cobalt's approach is nice, they use mod_perl to read in a config file written by their configurator app and generate the appropriate config info. It's too bad the interface absolutely *sucks* for managing more than a couple dozen virtual sites on one box (we had one cobalt box serving up 200 sites. not fun, since the group-based security model starts to lock out the admin user after only 28 sites)
Re:Configuration (Score:4, Informative)
But since it runs within IIS, you still have to use the IIS Manager for such tasks as creating a new application directory, changing the directory security settings, or setting the default document.
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Interesting)
That's one of the features slated for IIS 6. Or at least exporting the metabase to an XML file.
Re:Configuration and scripting (Score:4, Informative)
I spent 3 years as an NT admin and I can honestly state that I scripted any repetitious or large tasks I encountered. Of course most of the other admins I worked with, while fairly technically knowledgeable, seemed oblivious to the concept of scripting or programming in general. I'm not a fan of Microsoft (I don't like signing 12 NDA's to look at my OS's source) and NT/2K/XP do have some serious flaws. But it get's a bad rap for the wrong reason most of the time, and a lack of scripting support is not really one of it's failings.
Re:Configuration (Score:2, Informative)
I'm a sysadmin on an Apache/Linux server, but about 6 months ago I installed Apache on Win2K. Having had past experience with IIS 4, I was pleasantly surprised at how easily Apache/Windows was set up. You may need to tweak it if you want to add certain functionality, but this is true of IIS as well.
Re:Configuration (Score:2)
There are plenty of sites dealing with W2K security. Go to the Sans Reading Room [sans.org] for a start.
This coming to you from a MCP.
Re:Configuration (Score:4, Troll)
Easy to configure?? Your'e kidding, right?
I first played with Apache (on NT4 in fact) at about the same time as I was given my first real live webserver to handle - which was IIS3, and soon afer, 4. Configuration of IIS is a nightmare compared to Apache. There are tons of things wher eyou have to painstakingly click up and down a complicated tree hierarchy with obscure generalist names like "web site" "host" "pubHTML" (IIRC, this was a few years ago now) and change them at multiple levels. This was especially true for getting CGI to run properly instead of sending back the source as text, or 500-ing, or whatever. Not at all intuitive. With Apache, there were IIRC a total of three things to type into a config file - plaintext, well commented, and pretty obvious what they should be. It took less an hour to get running even the first time I used it; and I wasn't at all used to editing text config files at the time.
From then on, as I used IIS to run Perl CGIs I'd mostly written & debugged at home on Apache, I grew more and more impressed with Apache. It's fast, flexible, incredibly stable (it's never ONCE crashed on me in production), secure (it was such fun tail -f ing the access log during CodeRed and nimda ...) and adding modules, of which there are tens of very powerful ones from HTTP proxies to authentication via databases, encryption, URL correction, you name it ) is usually just a matter of reading the docs for 10 mins, running configure, make, make install and adding a couple of lines to (the same) config file. Cos it's plain text I can do it in any editor I liked; when I started I was using Notepad and Programmers File Editor on Windows; now I use emacs , on Linux AND NT, but I could use Vi, or Microsoft Word, or whatever the hell else I wanted to .
Eventually I was fired for using Perl and Apache in production, instead of IIS. My successor was the guy who'd been doing the HTML and graphics for the content - a good chap and certainly capable of picking up at least as good Perl as I'd written (not very, at the time. But it worked, dammit! :) . He complained to me a few months later that after several very expensive courses, and a load of bloated expensive slow Visual InterDev / Vusal Studio guff installed on his machine, he'd started converting my Perl to ASP. IIS crashed all the time, not only on his dev machine but on the production server. He was secretly reading the Gecko on his own time and playing with a sly Apache install... :)
I wonder if any of the commenters in favour of IIS actually moved FROM apache to it. IN my experience the traffic is all one-way...
Re:Configuration (Score:3, Informative)
Then the word came down to me that I was to start working on the company intranet. I had no experience with IIS or Apache so it was pretty much whatever I found to be easier. With IIS I found a cute dynamically generated template from the start. The source of the pages looked like a mess of ASP stuff that I really didn't want to deal with. Actually trying to configure the thing wasn't much easier with the obscure/non descriptive names. Updating the thing didn't work very well either as the Microsoft wizards tended to break the things that were actually working.
In contrast Apache only gives you the "you're running Apache - have a nice day" page. I'm okay with config files, and I certainly found it relatively easy to setup with the well commented files. Thus the Linux side continues to grow and become more useful every day. I'm not neccesarily against IIS (although I'd never leave a server running it directly exposed to the internet), but I think it leaves a lot to be desired when compaired to the free alternative.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate MS (Score:2, Interesting)
Demise of IIS? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's well integrated into Windows and it's still running many many sites using ASP (the equivalent of PHP).
With ASP.Net we may even see it start to compete against more powerful web development environment such as Java Server Pages (JSP) and Apple's WebObjects.
Re:Demise of IIS? (Score:2)
But I still have no idea what it does (other than the obvious implications of its name).
Can someone provide a simple description of what cocoon does?
Re:Demise of IIS? (Score:2)
I must agree. (Score:2)
Unless they are planing to replace it... no one knows. The reason that IIS isn't in XP Home? I'm guessing because it's not needed. Opens home users up for another hole. And of course, charge more money for IIS.
Remember code red? I can't forget, I'm getting probed for IIS daily.
Re:I must agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly, the article asserts that Microsoft have already given up on IIS, the proof being its absence in XP Home and its non-standard presence in XP Pro
It wasn't installed default in Win2k Pro either...how about nt4? Has it ever been in the default install on workstations?
Re:I must agree. (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to the world of "me too" management. The really high-level managers are sitting around the table talking strategy. Somebody proudly says "We are developing the next version of the XYZ program" The other managers think 'oh shit!' and each in turn pipes up and says, "yes, we will update our PDQ program at the same time"
They all want to be part of the game; they want to keep putting points on the board.
The really funny part is when they return to their respective groups and brainstorm new features just so that there can be a point release.
Similar things happen in all organizations. I'll never forget being sent of a recon (spy) mission to another post in Korea to find out what humanitarian efforts were underway following a flood. In my bosses words "whatever they do, we had better do to" as opposed to the correct attitude "lets find out if they have any good ideas that we could also make use of to benefit the civilians living in our area of responsibility."
Re:I must agree. (Score:2, Funny)
You must be kidding
The real reason must be to make more money selling the pro version.
Re:I must agree. (Score:2, Informative)
They are planning on rewriting it
Having worked with both... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:3, Informative)
I work with both daily - well apache 1.3, i haven't used 2. And yeah, if the MS gui control actually worked all the time, and really did what it said it did -- that would be nice. And i might respect IIS.
IIS has some neat features (like the Apache 2.0 features as far as application pooling, etc.) but I have never seen a server go down so easy as an IIS server. Ours restart themselves every few days, and we don't even really get that much traffic. High KB volume per-session, not many sessions. Maybe we're just a corner case or whatever.
I find their admin utilities to be absolutely frustrating, in that I often make a change, and then open up the panel later, and it's back to the "default" setting. I'll take my httpd.conf any day.
Choose Quit to commit your prefs (Score:2)
I find their admin utilities to be absolutely frustrating, in that I often make a change, and then open up the panel later, and it's back to the "default" setting.
This is a common problem with preferences in many applications. You have to make sure that the application writes its preferences to disk, and many apps don't do this until you close the app. So much for five nines.
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:2)
I totally look forward to a viable Apache for Win32. Rip IIS out by the roots. Kludgy, unstable, non-scalable thing that it is!
BTW, a little secret about
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:4, Insightful)
Try having the web server go down DAILY. This is an e-commerce site we're talking about here
Did anyone ever TRY to fix it? I mean you obviously know that there are MANY IIS implimentations running out there without going down daily.
Maybe it was running some dodgie ASP script (do until rs.eof; rs.loop; [without the rs.movenext]) will obviously make IIS crack the shits by putting it in an endless loop.
Anyway, point being, /. seems to be full of incompatent systems administrators; If I was running the site, it would NOT be going down every day. I would work day and night until I had a fix. Did you ever try MS support; I've used them for problems before, and they are execellent.
...and don't give me that crap about having to PAY for support, its an e-commerce site for god's sake!
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:3, Insightful)
How can the web server be "down" if it's still serving the 404 page?
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:2)
Re:Having worked with both... (Score:4, Informative)
end then when you get there realise that there aren't any text editors installed you can use so it's
copy con > file.txt
and hoping you don't typo!
And there you are sat at your friends house and you've got to install software just get in which you've got to convinve him to do
nope, gimme a computer I can control with a 9600baud gsm phone on a train or out skiing
that'll be that there unix stuff
oh and while you're there back your web server up without stopping the service
including the server side active X controls
oh, darn, you can't, you've got to reboot to unload them from memory so the kernel will unlock their disk image. How long does it take to come back up? 5 maybe 10 minutes, 20 even for a well used Exchange Server. oops forgot to set that service auto start, doh now it says something's changed and i need to reboot again.
lovely on a 14.4 modem in a hotel room at $5 a minute
I'm so glad I left all that behind.
Uhhhhhh (Score:4, Redundant)
What a crock of crap. As an IIS Admin I will not sit here and act like IIS is perfect (it is a royal pain in the arse actually), but this is just clueless reporting(?). IIS has NEVER been installed by default in ANY version of NT or 2000 Workstation, Professional, etc. I know that it wasn't installed by default in NT4 Server as well. I honestly can't remember with 2000 Server. Such drivel like this really throws lots of salt in the article. If I were Microsoft, I wouldn't give this writer any air of legitimacy by responding either.
Compaq servers (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Compaq servers (Score:2)
Maybe it's Compaq SmartStart and the unattended setup file they create, but IIS is installed by default with Windows 2000 on compaq servers
IFAIK Compaq Smart Start is for setting up SERVERS, there is no option on Smart Start to install Win2k Pro (or NT4 WS for that matter), and SmartStart 5.20 (latest release available in .AU does not have any options to install any version of XP.
No one is denying that IIS isn't installed by default on Win2k SERVER (because it is); the argument is about IIS on Win2k Pro.
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2, Interesting)
2000 Server and Advanced Server install IIS 5.0 by default. In fact, on all the installs I have done, if I ever tried to deselect IIS during the (attended) install, the machine would unexpectededly reboot, and I would have to resume the installation again. Suffice it to say, I would simply accept the default install and remove packages later.
I did an install the other day and was hit with CodeRed within 10 minutes of having the server up. I prolly had a few hundred active connections going to port 80.
I should have disconnected the box and turned off IIS before going to download the service packs and fixes. My bad, had to reinstall again. That's what you get for not paying attention, I guess.
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:3, Informative)
The reply is factual. In fact if you look at the NT 4.0 Workstation and W2K Pro licenses you'll see that it's against the license to run a web server on them (can't exceed 10 concurrent IP connections).
Remember the giant excrement-meteorological-event when MS tried to enforce the 10 connection limit in the early beta versions of NT 5.0? (The ol' 2000 name when it was going to be delivered in 98.)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:4, Funny)
Are you suggesting that the NT 4 IIS could handle more than 10 simultaneous requests?
Sorry, had to bite on such an obvious bait =)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2)
Really, this seems like a massive missed opportunity for the monster marketing machine. (Is there a synonym for "opportunity" that starts with 'M'?) If they distributed IIS with every desktop and enabled it by default, they would push Apache off of its majority market share and claim the prize for themselves. This would be an important step in monopolizing both the client and the server. Of course, the Internet would be crushed under the weight of all the resulting worms and attacks, but that's not their fault, is it?
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2, Informative)
Indeed, directly from the bastion of evil [microsoft.com].
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2)
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2, Informative)
"Internet Information Services 5.0 is not installed on Windows 2000 Professional by default.
Note
If you upgraded to Windows 2000, IIS 5.0 will be installed by default only if PWS was installed on your previous version of Windows."
Re:Uhhhhhh (Score:2)
Sounds like wishful thinking (Score:2, Insightful)
...and with a simple click an unwitting user will openn up their PC to the world. Evil MS has yet more holes/flaws....
MS has not given up on IIS (Score:5, Informative)
The next server version of windows (Windows
Windows
Windows
Windows
Windows
Had MS given up on IIS they would have a seperate Windows
Re:MS has not given up on IIS (Score:2)
Not bashing (I actually think the MMC is pretty dandy at keeping users in check) but that was always a sticking point with me. "It's a good server, but it basically forces me to install this drek..."
Re:MS has not given up on IIS (Score:2)
Re:MS has not given up on IIS (Score:2)
You mean I'll finally be able to install a Windows file/print server without having IIS installed with it? :) ...[SNIP]..."It's a good server, but it basically forces me to install this drek..."
You have HAVE to install IIS on a WIn2k/NT4 server. It's only selected by default. The first thing I do after an install of Win2k for a file/print server is remove IIS (and a whole lot of other crap!)
Re:and article was wrong here too. (Score:2)
At work, sure, it's usually locked down so I can run my apps and not tweak it. At home? I have an office suite I can program in a half dozen different languages, a development environment without equal for C++, perl, python, haskell, ocaml. I use bash as my shell with all the unix utilities I want, including X11 ones. I run mysql, postgresql, and MSSQL for my databases, I run Java apps with blazing speed. I have my choice of IIS and apache for servers -- and run both at once, IE, Opera, and Mozilla for clients. I get remote access to my desktop with VNC, to my individual apps with MTS.
Frankly I don't see where I'm stuck here. I suppose if I needed to put up a cheap firewall I'm out of luck on my platform, but that's all I can think of offhand. Yes it costs -- I willingly paid for these features.
Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:5, Informative)
Apache on the other hand is also a good webserver, its been tested pretty throughly and doesnt seem to have that many holes, ( I cant say it does or doesnt because I havent looked ) but its also pretty intuitive to use for people that use Unix, so until the Unix population grows bigger than the windows population, IIS is going to be a tad more popular among that crowd..
I applaud microsoft for moving it out of the mainstream windows, it creates less of a hole to fix, and it decreases the risk of having another CodeRed type of thing happen again where users dont know that their computer is doing something.. but yeah, microsoft is tryign to make more money off it too.. this shouldnt surprise anybody
Re:Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:2)
Well, quite!
I just happened to have spent the last couple of hours compiling Apache 1.3.22 with mod_perl under Cygwin on NT4. Rather a perverse thing to spend time doing, I know, but great fun and useful... I think that the act of compiling software is underestimated as a way of guaranteeing that the user / admin understands it, what it's doing and so on. When bugs appear, as-they-inevitably-do-in-any-software , the admin who's had to read INSTALL or README, read the output of make and configure to see what's going on and fix or tackle problems, will always end up with a more secure machine. (And of course as we all know, Apache has had far, far fewer security issues than IIS.) `Release often' also makes a big difference. If you install NT43 today, you then have to spend the best part of a day just installing hotfixes and rebooting. Same with IIS.MS never recalls the code for OSes or apps, even when they're known to be so riddled with holes that a default install connected to the net will likely be compromised within hours; yes folks, they're still shipping XP CDs with that UPnP hole in, and will continue to do so for the entire life of the product in all likelyhood. How many normal end-users would expect that to be the case? Apache OTOH always has the latest & best stable code up as the default install. yet another factor in it's allround wonderfulness.
I'm very happy to be seeing this banner, can you tell? :)
00:53:53:/usr/local/src/screen/screen-3.9.10
andrew@INEGO% telnet 192.168.0.1 80
Trying 192.168.0.1...
Connected to 192.168.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 00:54:10 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.22 (Cygwin) mod_perl/1.26
Last-Modified: Sun, 25 Nov 2001 04:29:35 GMT
ETag: "16078f-bd8-3c0073af"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 3032
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html
.
.
.
Re:Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:2)
That's because it is a PITA to patch anything on microsoft platforms. Installation is even worse with all the bullshit licensing checks they do in the install scripts.
Could you imagine having to patch a large hosting facility (I dunno...500-1000 IIS servers)? No thanks. And that's why it doesn't get done.
Re:Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:3, Informative)
Doable if you are using AD. We discussed it while I attended the SANS class on securing IIS. You have one server that hosts the patches and you configure your IIS servers to periodically check that server to update themselves. The same is true of IIS settings in this circumstance. Let's say you have WebDev enabled on all of your IIS servers and you get an alert from SANS about an exploit in which there is no fix atm. You can update one template that all the servers are using and then send that out.
Would I want to admin a bunch of IIS 4.0 servers? No. But IIS 5.0 isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
Re:Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:2)
You have one server that hosts the patches and you configure your IIS servers to periodically check that server to update themselves.
This reminds my, why don't MS release patches in a .MSI or .MSP format to make is easy to deploy through AD.
This is my main gripe about MS's patches, they have this awsome AD technology to make deployment easy, but you need to create your own MSI for them!
Re:Apache AND IIS are good.. (Score:2)
Apache is not necessarily harder to use; if you just install Apache you will be doing all the configuration yourself, but there are scores of great configuration utilities for every platform Apache runs on that make it much easier to use than IIS.
Consider that in Mac OS X to get an Apache server up and running you simply put the files for the site in /Library/WebServer/Documents and (if applicable) have each user put their files in their ~/Sites folder, then open System Prefs, click Sharing, click Start Web Sharing, wait 2 seconds and it's up.
It's part of .NET (Score:4, Interesting)
And also apache is nice in many ways, but if you just want to put up a couple files on an intranet or something, it's so easy just to right click on the directory and choose "Web Sharing" to create a virtual IIS web directory that it certainly has it's place.
Re:It's part of .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not against making things simple, but some things are made dangerous in the process of simplifying them.
Dunstan
Re:It's part of .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course in both cases you need to make sure that your web server is configured right, and has any security patches installed, and that when you publish script based pages that you make sure they are secure.
But there is nothing more secure about having a nice simple user interface to acomplish simple things than making you edit a complex configuration file apart from discouraging less experienced people from doing it all.
Re:It's part of .NET (Score:3, Insightful)
Dumb article (Score:2, Redundant)
IIS wasn't in the default install for 2000 pro either. Why does this matter, anyway? Is there anyone who uses web server software "because it was there?" Organizations don't run web servers on workstations, either. XP home and pro are both workstation operating systems.
MS gives up on IIS? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no IIS or PWS (the watered-down version of IIS) in Win9x although you can download PWS from MS.
XP Pro, which is replacement for Win2k Pro, has IIS as optional component just like Win2k Pro.
As far as I know, there has been no change in MS' commitment to spreading the virus that is IIS. The whole
Whoever thinks MS is pulling out of IIS business needs to stop smoking crack.
WebDav support (Score:5, Interesting)
WindowsXP supports the mounting of WebDAV shares, as does Linux with the help of the DAV filesystem driver [sourceforge.net]. And Apache could be the standard fileserver... scary.
Re:WebDav support (Score:2)
WindowsXP supports the mounting of WebDAV shares, as does Linux
Mac OS X also supports mounting WebDAV shares
Re:WebDav support (Score:3, Informative)
Apache 2 thoughts. (Score:2, Interesting)
Lots of businesses, and even home users use Apache, because it can be fast and easy to set up.
If I remember correctly, Apache is also preinstalled on Apples using OS X (at least the newest iMacs.)
Apache is a powerful name, period.
I think Apache 2 will be an even more powerful point in server history, because up to now, Apache has been free (i can not say, in regards to IIS), stable, and secure.
Hopefully, however, A 2 will be easier to configure. I was looking at configging it today on my (WinXP X_X) box, and was lost in all the configurations.
However, In my opinion, IIS is just a danger and a nuisance. I used to be hosted on a server using IIS, and it was just a continuous stream of problems. I moved to an Apache server, and I was in heaven.
Plainly speaking, all people need is to see how powerful Apache is, and all its benefits, and be able to compare them.
In the end, they'll figure out what they want.
I know my wants lie with Apache and its future.
Microsoft ditching IIS? Not likely... (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft will not be ditching IIS. It is not an option in Windows XP Home because the average XP Home user isn't creating database-driven Web sites in ASP or Perl/CGI (you'd be lucky to find an XP Home user that knows HTML, I'd wager). Further, IIS is not a pre-installed option in Windows 2000 Professional, so why should it be in Windows XP Professional? Most XP Professional users are not Web developers (though many Web developers are XP Professional users) that don't need IIS installed on their system.
I suppose anti-Microsoft fanatics will also say that IIS on XP Professional being limited to 10 concurrent connections is further proof that Microsoft is dropping IIS. (Windows 2000 Professional is also limited to 10 concurrent connections.) But really this is just a way for Microsoft to ensure that people buy their more expensive Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server (and their forthcoming Windows.NET Server and Windows.NET Advanced Server).
Just because something isn't included in the Home version and isn't installed (by default) in the Workstation version of a product doesn't mean it is being dropped.
Anyone who argues that Microsoft is giving up their fight to be dominant in the Web server market doesn't know anything about Microsoft strategy and obviously knows nothing about their .NET campaign.
Why was this article posted??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why was this article posted??? (Score:2)
Zeus!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Zeus is a non-forking server (at least for static pages). It's extremely fast, it performs even better than thttpd, while being more secure and with plenty of features. A single server running Zeus can easily replace 3 servers running Apache with the same content.
Zeus has an excellent web-based administration interface. The only fact that you can group sites can make you save a lot of time (group them by customers, then to disable all sites of a customer, one click is enough. No need to parse an ugly httpd.conf file) .
Zeus is designed for clustering (to add a machine to a cluster, one click is enough) .
Zeus works on a lot of operating systems (still waiting for the OpenBSD 3.0 version, though) .
Zeus supports frontpage, php, perl, etc. There's also a perl script to convert an existing Apache configuration to Zeus.
Ah yeah, Zeus isn't free software, though. Neither is IIS.
Instead of focusing on the demise of IIS (Score:4, Insightful)
If Apache 2.0 really works as well under Windows as it does under Unix, that is a really great thing. Apache currently supports almost as many languages as
Apache is a winner because it is secure, scalable, fast and reliable. If it is all these things under Windows thats even better. I wish the article could have played up the strengths of Apache rather than serving up the pipe dream that Microsoft is ditching IIS.
IIS isn't going anywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
IIS is perceived to be "good enough" by many companies and organizations. The effort to find, learn, integrate, and get support for another slightly-better alternative just isn't worth it to them.
However, MS is taking a huge beating on the security issues, and if they loose that "good enough" image, there will be a crack for Apache to squeeze through. Don't count on it being there for long...
watch out... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, my only justification for making this statement is that Microsoft values its survival and is not, contrary to popular belief, run by idiots. If
a) Microsoft's survival depends on its ability to sell its products;
b) IIS is a product that it wants to sell;
c) A competitor (Apache) offers something that appears to be highly demanded by the market;
d)IIS and Apache compete with each other;
e)By building the market-demanded functionality into its product Microsoft might sell more of its product and take market share away from its competitor; then
Microsoft will build that functionality into its product.
They've done it in the past with other products and even leveraged their status as a monopoly in order to swallow market share. It's good to see the developers of Apache continuing to improve their software because if they were to stop doing so, Microsoft would soon provide something as good or better. As a company, Microsoft is ferociously competitive.
Astonishing Lack of Information (Score:2, Insightful)
I like config files better (Score:2, Insightful)
There is nothing better than doing a cvs checkout and being able to access 100 sets of config files for every server, use a script to make changes across all the servers, check them in and then let a cron job on each individual server check for changes and restart the affected services when it updates their configuration files.
It is also great to be able to review every change to every config file and to see _why_, _who_ and _when_ those changes were made. Want to revert back to the exact same configuration that was in use 6 months ago? No problem.
GUI's are nice for managing one box, but configuration files are the method of choice when you are managing hundreds or thousands of servers.
Until the windows registry can be maintained using a revision control system, it is just a toy.
Re:I like config files better (Score:2)
Corollary (Score:2)
Until Windows can be maintained using config files, it is just a toy.
Re:I like config files better (Score:5, Informative)
Very handy if you want to keep a standardised configuration backup.
Apache vs. IIS (Score:3, Insightful)
IIS going to .NET (Score:2, Informative)
Also, Microsoft has added new functionality to Visual C++ 7.0 that permits an application to define a buffer overflow exception handler that will add code to the prologue (4 cycles) and epilogue (6 cycles) of every function that deals with pointers to double check the return address. If a function causes a buffer overflow in any module (this would extend to custom written ISAPI modules) IIS could catch the error, report it to the logs, and gracefully kill the thread. I'm not sure that IIS now uses this, but I wouldn't be shocked if IIS of tomorrow does.
Absence of IIS in XP (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not installed by default in XP to avoid security risks associated with IIS. So users who don't use it, don't have to worry about installing security patches, administering it, etc. It is not about phasing out IIS, it is about mininizing security risks and exposure surface.
Oh my God, this is just too funny! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft has seemingly acknowledged defeat: IIS is not available on the Home edition of XP and the Professional edition, by default, is installed without IIS. "
Microsoft get's questioned as to why IIS would possibly be installed automatically, or why it would be installed on a machine whose user probably doesn't know what it is... So in an effort to offer a more secure platform they change the configuration in Windows XP. Home does not get IIS, and Pro only installs it by request.(Actually Win2k Pro only installed IIS by request as well, and WinMe didn't ship with IIS at all either, but whatever)
Now this guy claims it's because Microsoft is abandoning the market.
That has got to be the funniest thing I have read thus far this year. There are some equally stupid statements made elsewhere in the article, but it's really not worth the effort to point them out.
related stories (Score:2)
- Another Vulnerability Discovered in IIS
- New IIS Patch the Ultimate Fix?
- Microsoft Says IIS 5.0 Web Servers Vulnerable to Attack
- Apache Group Creates Foundation
Chortle.Article laden with errors. (Score:5, Informative)
First off, it's not in Home because...well...it's HOME EDITION. IIS is one of the major "features" in Professional compared to Home. You didn't see them putting IIS in WinME, did you? Didn't think so.
Second, I assume by "non-standard" he means that IIS isn't installed by default in WinXP Pro? Yeah. Time to wake up to the FUD that has perpetuated about the "default install" of IIS. Windows 2000, both Professional and Server, didn't install IIS by default either. IIS has been "optional" for almost 2 years now. Unfortunately, the general
I'm not going to claim that IIS has actually gained ground in the last few years, since I honestly can't be sure given all the conflicting reports. However, all MS's claimed increases have taken place without IIS installed by default on all current, shipping OS's. The fact that this will continue to be the case should have little to no bearing on their current position.
Now, a brand-new Apache coming out? That's news. Talk about that. There's really no need to toss in anti-MS propaganda at any possible opportunity because it just looks plain silly. (Although I'll probably be modded down for saying so.)
-Jayde
IIS not end all, but either is Apache (Score:3, Insightful)
As other have stated, the article has tons of errors. Why in the world would IIS disappear if .NET is microsoft's push into enterprises services. Microsoft is trying to enter the world IBM dominates, so having IIS is an important piece of the puzzle. What part of web services does bob lui the writer not understand?
It's amazing he didn't read the whitepapers availabe on msdn site and see that HTTP protocol, webservers and SOAP are critical pieces. From my limited understanding, .NET takes the idea of ASP to the next level and integrates a new CLR into the webserver. It's obvious the previous ASP scripting engine for VB and Javascript wasn't going to meet the needs of .NET.
It's good that IIS is getting a serious upgrade to bring it closer to application server. Ever since ASP came out, it lacked a standard application server framework. When ever a website required stateful sessions with complex data management, developers would use Visual C++ and write com objects. Apache and IIS are finally getting closer to application servers, so that is good for developers. The article should have gone deeper into the new features of both servers and showed how it all fits into the new model of web services.
IIS 6.0 (Score:3, Informative)
Anyways, funny they didn't mention any of that in the article.. quite the clueless writer. I'll never claim IIS is as stable, secure, or flexible as Apache, knowing first hand, but its definately better than it used to be.
Re:Too bad we can't moderate articles (Score:2, Insightful)
(OT)You can moderate articles, just not... (Score:2, Informative)
Too bad we can't moderate articles ... even I recognize this article as a troll.
Users can moderate articles, but not on a Slash site. Go to Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] or any other Scoop site and moderate as many submitted articles as you want.
--Pinocchio
Re:Rest Assured (Score:2)
Server != production server; other reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
why ... would anyone seriously want to run Windows as a server
Because server != production server, and a fellow often has valid reasons for running server software on a workstation. Some users like to share a small number of files from their workstations and need more flexibility than AIM and MSN provide. Others develop web sites using tools that run on Windows and prefer to test their designs initially on localhost. If FreeBSD doesn't support your network card, your video card, or your sound card, what are you supposed to run on your workstation?
Still other organizations have an exclusive contract with Microsoft for operating system software or hard-bummed bosses who won't take UNIX for an answer.
Re:Server != production server; other reasons (Score:2)
The answer: you go to the computer store and buy compatible hardware for FreeBSD. If you were talking about special-purpose hardware then this would be a different story (especially since such hardware usually comes with specialized software for a particular OS). A $15 network card should not be holding back your OS choice.
Re:Quality Config Tools (Score:3, Interesting)
My opinion is that text based configuration for servers is far superior to the Microsoft GUI approach. Here are some of reasons why:
- No need to run some sort of windowing protocol over the network, be it X or PC Anywhere or whatever. These are SLOW. Hell, on Linux/Unix servers there is no need for any sort of GUI.
- Please explain how you grep a GUI interface to find that key coniguration parameter you want to change?
- Want to experiment with a configuration change? cp the text file to a backup copy, and hack away secure in the knowledge that reversion is just another cp away!
- GUI configuration tools under Microsoft are very misleading because they do not give you access to the whole story. Example - what does it take to install another service using port 80 on a Win2K server? You have to hit the command line!
There are many others.
The ulitmate proof of my argument is that there have been a number of projects to develop GUI configuration tools for Apache. Does anyone use them? No! Why? Because text configuration if far superior.