Lighttpd and the future of cPanel

[DReade83]

I asked this months ago but never got a response. I didn't want to reply to the original post in case you ban me for digging up new posts... So I'm starting a fresh.

Lighttpd - are you likely to implement this? If not, why not? There's quite a few sites out there that use it now with great results. Facebook appear to be moving over to it too, from Apache. Surely if web giants like them are moving to something new along with other major sites, you should at least be considering doing the same?

Apache is slower than lighttpd from what I've seen and been told - but that said, why couldn't you at least give people the option of either using Apache or Lighttpd?

Litespeed appears to be another interesting web server, which actually features a WHM plugin allowing you to administer everything from WHM itself, and switch between Apache/Litespeed, replacing Apache completely, or even run both alongside for testing purposes. Litespeed appears to feature full support for existing Apache configurations - I installed the trial yesterday and managed to switch every site on my server to LS in a matter of minutes - using their plugin, it replicated the exact Apache settings and PHP build + config into Litespeed - there was no extra configurations involved, it just worked, and every page instantly loaded in half the time.

It's things like this that make Apache look bad... I'm not saying Apache is awful and shouldn't be used - it's been around for ages and is still the market leader, but there are other solutions out there... Are you going to include these in future builds of cPanel?

That said, future builds of cPanel, I've noticed updates of cPanel have been becoming less and less over the past few months. Is the cPanel project slowly dying off or something? I mean the last security update for Apache was rolled out, then back again and since still hasn't been issued. Why is this?

Is cPanel in trouble, or is there another explanation?

[DReade83]

Can I have a response please?

[cpanelkenneth]

Implementing a full replacement for Apache is a costly and resource intensive undertaking which would require a full version update ( i.e. cPanel 12 ). There are no plans or ETA on implementing support in the near future for other httpd servers.

While I agree that some of the other httpd servers are very good, comparing what a single application is doing ( e.g. Facebook ) versus what typically happens on a cPanel server is not a 1:1 comparison ( apples to oranges metaphor ).

cPanel, the company, is working toward release of 11.25 on the *nix side, and RC0 on the Windows side. We are very busy What you cite as 'cPanel updates' is really updates to the EasyApache application. Most of what goes into that application now are either bug fixes or updates to 3rd party products, such as SQLite. The Apache 2.2.x fix was removed because it breaks too many things. Once the patch is improved, or 2.2.12 is released, the fix will be reimplemented.

[DReade83]

Thanks Kenneth, I understand about the Apache thing, but what about support for MySQL 5.1 or phpMyAdmin 3.x? Both have been out for months and cPanel still stands by their "we don't support this" for both products.

Is there an ETA for v11.25 at all? I've noticed 11.24.7 has been in beta and edge for sometime, but not seen or heard anything more on 11.25, which is why I wasn't sure if cPanel were focusing more on the Windows product than the *nix one. Thanks for clarifying this though.

Do you know what sorts of software are in the beta or edge compared to the current or other more mature packages?

[cpanelkenneth]

Originally Posted by DReade83

Thanks Kenneth, I understand about the Apache thing, but what about support for MySQL 5.1 or phpMyAdmin 3.x? Both have been out for months and cPanel still stands by their "we don't support this" for both products.

Is there an ETA for v11.25 at all? I've noticed 11.24.7 has been in beta and edge for sometime, but not seen or heard anything more on 11.25, which is why I wasn't sure if cPanel were focusing more on the Windows product than the *nix one. Thanks for clarifying this though.

Do you know what sorts of software are in the beta or edge compared to the current or other more mature packages?

cPanel 11.24.7 is cPanel 11.25.0 for most intents and purposes. As with all things EDGE we don't recommend running it on production servers.

PHPMyAdmin will likely come when we implement support for MySQL 5.1

We are currently analyzing MySQL 5.1 for integration and support. There is another thread on this forum where I've commented upon the holdup for MySQL 5.1

[DReade83]

Thanks Kenneth for the clarification, much appreciated. I look forward to the day 11.25 is stable enough for release.

Keep up the good work.

[cpanelkenneth]

Originally Posted by DReade83

Thanks Kenneth for the clarification, much appreciated. I look forward to the day 11.25 is stable enough for release.

Keep up the good work.

No problem. I enjoyed the conversation.