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Nginx is a well-engineered piece of software. The only problem, in my opinion, is that does not support loadable modules; any features you want or don't want ne

Nginx is a well-engineered piece of software. The only problem, in my opinion, is that does not support loadable modules; any features you want or don't want need to be configured at compile-time, and those are only the official ones that are part of the mainline code. Third-party "modules" such as Phusion Passenger are essentially patches. Since Nginx has a modular architecture, those patches are admittedly very clean, but it's still a pretty ugly situation compared to Apache's elegant loadable module system.

hackermom 15y ago
I'd like to see DSO support for nginx as well. The lack of this feature is the reason I still haven't moved from Apache.
- justincormack 15y ago
  It works if you have a package management system like gentoo, that compiles from source, or the BSDs, just not most Linux distros.
rcoder 15y ago
For a base web server included in OpenBSD by default, I don't think dynamic loading is actually a huge win. Auditing and hardening a single, statically-compiled binary is easier than doing the same thing for one that loads shared objects at runtime. Since adding and removing Apache modules already requires a restart of the httpd process, a good source-based build system like ports can make adding and removing modules via build flags nearly as straightforward as dynamic loading.
- lobster_johnson 15y ago
  Not for OpenBSD, maybe, but for other operating systems based on precompiled binary packages. Nginx uses a forked worker model that probably would allow adding/removing modules without restarting the entire server.
  - mfjordvald 15y ago
    Considering that you can upgrade the binary without any downtime then yeah, it probably would. I personally think there are bigger issues that needs to be covered first, such as support for persistent connections to backends and HTTP/1.1 support when reverse proxying. (Was just added in 1.1.4, now it just needs testing!)

hackermom 15y ago

I'd like to see DSO support for nginx as well. The lack of this feature is the reason I still haven't moved from Apache.

justincormack 15y ago
It works if you have a package management system like gentoo, that compiles from source, or the BSDs, just not most Linux distros.

rcoder 15y ago

For a base web server included in OpenBSD by default, I don't think dynamic loading is actually a huge win. Auditing and hardening a single, statically-compiled binary is easier than doing the same thing for one that loads shared objects at runtime. Since adding and removing Apache modules already requires a restart of the httpd process, a good source-based build system like ports can make adding and removing modules via build flags nearly as straightforward as dynamic loading.

lobster_johnson 15y ago
Not for OpenBSD, maybe, but for other operating systems based on precompiled binary packages. Nginx uses a forked worker model that probably would allow adding/removing modules without restarting the entire server.
- mfjordvald 15y ago
  Considering that you can upgrade the binary without any downtime then yeah, it probably would. I personally think there are bigger issues that needs to be covered first, such as support for persistent connections to backends and HTTP/1.1 support when reverse proxying. (Was just added in 1.1.4, now it just needs testing!)