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you create this features hiawatha might become a threat to apache dominance!

What about the ability to reload the configuration files without restarting the server before implementing this feature? In my case I wrote a custom web hosting panel and daemon to administer all the vhost, so in my humble opinion it would be far more important been able to reload the hiawatha configuration files without restarting. Also adding support for a client/server DBMS would add bloat that not everybody is going to need. In the case such option is needed SQLite should be taken into consideration since it requires far less runtime resources.

I ran about 30 webservers at peak times, it was painful.

A centralized MySQLbased config would be really awesome,
and another big reason for switching to hiawatha.

@Jeff: Reloading configuration for a live webserver is far more complex than you probably realize. Previous Hiawatha versions allowed it, but it caused many stability issues. After the new configuration is loaded, you can't simple remove the old configuration from memory, because it's probably still in use. What if a browser already is connected and after reload opens new connections for the same website. Then some connections are handled via the old configuration and some via the new configuration.

@Alexander: Can you tell me what you really need in maintaining many webservers. What configuration changes are needed? Only adding / removing virtual hosts? Changes in virtual hosts? Adding support for MySQL is a big change and I really want to avoid it of not really need. Can you assist me in brainstorming about what is needed? What if for example I add a feature to only add new virtual hosts. And many remove virtual hosts. Will that work too?

I like the idea however I have a few suggestions:

1) support both standard text or database configs
2) support for multiple database server types - sqlite, postgresql, mysql, etc... perhaps some nosql types
3) support remote database servers - for high availability environments

In my personal experience, restarting the webserver is not a big issue.
Even if I manage a significant number of vhosts, nobody cares.

But I think that a database driven configuration would be a boost
to switch from Apache to Hiawatha because would be easier to
write down a configurator and try to fill the gap that
do not permit to have a wider base of "normal" users expecting
a "standard" LAMP server for their Wordpress, Joomla or so.
Only my 2 cents.

At my current work we use clusters of Apache servers using mod_vhost_alias [httpd.apache.org] to achieve something similar to this (I realise this uses directories on disk rather than configs in a database but it does mean we can dynamically add and remove vhosts without restarting/reloading).

Cheers,
Andrew

@Andrew: Is restarting a webserver really such a big issue? Do new website really have to be online the minute you add them to the configuration? Is periodically checking for a configuration change and restarting the webserver if so an acceptable solution? This can, for example, be done once per hour or once per day. During a restart, the webserver will be offline for about 2 seconds. Is that really unacceptable?

@Hugo What is a pie without cherry? It's still good but it ain't finished. If you for example make it so rewrite rules can be loaded from a database as well it would be better if they are instantly loaded instead of the server being restarted once a hour, or once a day. For security reasons doing this through a web application ain't the smartest idea.

@Hugo restarting a webserver isn't the issue, it is done that way to automate the adding of vhosts through a control panel so it doesn't need any access to the servers (and is also a lot quicker than loading all the vhosts with apache - as a shared hosting provider we have thousands or sites!).

Admittedly this isn't an everyday problem for most people - on my own servers (where I run Hiawatha) I routinely retart the server if needed.

Cheers,
Andrew

NoSQL is probably easiest to integrate and work with since it's so flexible. But MySQL is the most used open source relational database.

Hugo,
There was a poll about Hiawatha usage. Hobby or personal website was 44%. That is the user's answer to your question. I didn't vote, but I'm one of those 44% and I don't need or want SQL configuration.

But this is your program, your creation. If you want to change it's main category of users, feel free to do it. It's what you think that matters in the end.

One other choice would be to fork it and mentain two branches: one for home users and one for corporate use.

Marius'95

Hi,

How do I vote? For me it'll be a life chamging feature

Hi Hugo,

Just wondering if you mafe a decision if you will implement this feature or not?
The way I go around it at the moment is that I have 1 webserver per domain behind hiawatha proxy...

I only need to restart the proxy one and if I made further change to the domain, i can restart again and agin whithout affecting other domain.
I achieve this using FreeBSD jail

Please post an update

No, because there are administration tools available (like Salt and Puppet) that already offer this.