Feature Req: Include Pipe

[Bob Ippolito]

On 10/3/06, Jonathan Dance <jd at wuputah.com> wrote:
> > some webservers  have dynamic database support... they connect to the
> > db as needed to parse requests.  it sounds awesome, until you realize
> > that its awesomely stupid.  the db calls end up blocking the server,
> > the configuration is a nightmare, and  perfomance/usage just sucks.
>
> I think the biggest reason things like dbm or rdbms support gets added
> directly into web servers is that it allows run-time configuration -
> you do not need to reload, which can be a lot easier for people who
> are not shell-comfortable (like PHBs). The (big) downside with a rdbms
> is that the server does not know if something has changed, so it needs
> to constantly ask the data source for the latest information (although
> you could have it cache it for a limited period of time, e.g. 1
> minute). With a file-based dbm, the server can cache results but will
> have to keep checking the ctime of the file, which is better but still
> adds overhead and considerable extra code.
>
> Not saying dbm or rdbms support is a good idea, but just adding some
> perspective.

PHBs don't typically configure web servers (and certainly don't
currently use nginx or complicated database configuration backends),
so that's rather irrelevant.

I've never seen a web server that constantly hits a db for
configuration... anyway, you could do the same thing with shell
scripts that poll the db, write a new conf file, and HUP the web
server if the config is valid.

I wouldn't be against having a separate contrib daemon that does
something like this, but I definitely do not want to see database
drivers ending up loaded in the workers or the master.

-bob