What Do You Think?

[lsmichael]

So, what does everyone think of OpenLiteSpeed? Love it? Hate it? Disappointed? Totally shocked?

What do you wish was in the release? (Aside from the features reserved for Enterprise Edition, of course.) What can you imagine adding? Who should we try to get involved?

[lsmichael]

Hi Guillaume,

Those are two very good (sticky? thorny?) questions.

We will definitely be updating the comparison between different editions to include OpenLiteSpeed. In many ways, OpenLiteSpeed is a more powerful Standard Edition: A lot of things that are missing from OpenLiteSpeed are missing from Standard, except that OpenLiteSpeed (one of these days we're going to settle on an acronym, but I kind of want it to be something that the community picks up naturally) has no limit on concurrent connections and can scale to run on multiple processors. There are other differences, too, but I think those are going to be the big ones.

As for .htaccess, we do realize that a lot of people want .htaccess compatibility, but we think that's definitely an Enterprise function. It's an interesting issue because of the functionality that .htaccess files give, and we'd love to talk about it, but we think that belongs on the Enterprise side of things.

Cheers,

Michael

On Thursday, May 9, 2013 6:47:56 AM UTC-4, Guillaume Boudreau wrote:

Hi,

Great idea, I think.

The only thing that will prevent me, and many people, from using it is the missing .htaccess compatibility.

Many webapp I need to run (all open source web apps, like Gallery, Wordpress, etc.) include a .htaccess. Without that feature in OLS, I would need to run a degraded version (not clean URLs), or manually keep the OLS configuration up to date each time I install a new version, or they simply won't run.

The other missing features from OLS, I agree they are enterprise targeted.

What is OLS positioning, versus the standard (also free) version of LiteSpeed?

Maybe you could add OLS and it's missing features into this table here: http://www.litespeedtech.com/litespeed-web-server-editions.html

Thanks, and good day.

- Guillaume Boudreau

[lsmichael]

Hi George Liu,

No. No mistake. Rewrite compatibility and .htaccess compatibility are not the same thing. While, in Apache, rewrite rules are often put in .htaccess files, they can also go in httpd.conf, right? "Apache compatible rewrite engine" means that we use syntax virtually identical to Apache in our rewrite rules. You can't use .htaccess files because they're not supported, but you can copy your rewrite rules to OpenLiteSpeed's virtual hosts and use them there. You can't use .htaccess, but you don't have to learn a new syntax.

Michael

On Friday, May 10, 2013 6:45:09 AM UTC-4, George Liu wrote:

Great news but bit confused the open.litespeedtech.com web site lists rewrite support = .htaccess ? or is that a mistake ?

Under main features it lists 

Apache compatible rewrite engine

[lsmichael]

Hi Brian,

I know this is late, but, I was wondering, which part of .htaccess compatibility do you miss the most? We're not adding it into OpenLiteSpeed, but maybe there's a good workaround? If it's the rewrite rules, Slavik's right, you could just put them in your virtual host configurations. Is it application compatibility? Is it just the overall easiness of being able to drop LiteSpeed into an Apache machine?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Cheers,

Michael

On Saturday, May 11, 2013 1:25:40 AM UTC-4, Brian Zerangue wrote:

As for .htaccess, we do realize that a lot of people want .htaccess compatibility, but we think that's definitely an Enterprise function.

How is .htaccess an Enterprise function? It's already available in the FREE Standard version. Why not add .htaccess compatibility???? That seems like a no brainer to me. Nginx, Hiawatha, Lighttpd, and Cherokee all have some off the wall rewrite system. Isn't Litespeed for the most part an Apache replacement... a much faster and more secure replacement. 

The whole point of making Open Litespeed open was to grow the community right... why NOT make one of the biggest complaints about moving from Apache... having to learn a new rewrite system... or not being able to use .htaccess. Having .htaccess out of the box will make it that much more marketable and more attractive. 

PLEASE reconsider the whole notion of .htaccess is an "enterprise function".

[Matthew Smith]

I can't speak for Brian, but I get where he is coming from. When I first heard the news I was like no .htaccess well that's pants I'll pass, as I equated that as no friendly urls etc. I didn't realise at first that you could put still use them in the virtual host configuration area. I've always thought it was best practice not to use .htaccess files because of the performance hit, so it shouldn't really be a problem for most people but I guess for ease of use people still use them. Maybe finding a way of getting it across that there is a better way would encourage more people.

[lsmichael]

You're absolutely, 1,000,000% right.

I think I jumped to the wrong conclusion when I saw Brian's feedback. It seems like he (and maybe a lot of people?) was just concerned about not being able to use his rewrite rules or configure in the way he did with .htaccess. That's not a problem. You can't just use the .htaccess files out of the box, but you can put a lot of their contents into the virtual host configurations. You don't have to learn a new rewrite system or configuration structure.

Now, how do we make that more clear? I've got to think about that. I can do a blog post saying what I just said, but I need an example, an already set up Apache site that I port to OpenLiteSpeed. (Or maybe there's a better way to do it?) Maybe... I need to find some time soon.

Any better ideas?

m

[Don Daniello]

I would suggest trying to do something deadly simple. The .htaccess implementation in LiteSpeed Standard/Enterprise has a few features that you can put into .htaccess (including authorization, redirects, error messages etc).

I suggest that you add something deadly simple for OpenLiteSpeed. Treat .htaccess as the rewrite rules field. Get whatever is there into the rewrite rules map without supporting anything else.

The primary reason why people want .htaccess is because all good software available comes with .htaccess by default (Wordpress, phpBB, etc..). What they really need is the rewrite rules.

Regards,
DD

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[lsmichael]

Ah! Yes! The other really, really important point: If you just want the rewrite rules from your .htaccess files included in your configurations, just write an include into your configuration file to have it read your .htaccess files. OpenLiteSpeed will understand all the rewrite rules and disregard all the Apache directives (which it doesn't understand). This will mean that all your .htaccess rewrite rules will automatically be included in your configurations. You will have to restart your server each time you want changes to take effect, though. And you will have to define the locations of these files in the control file...

What are some other downsides...?

m

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[Don Daniello]

Could we include that file "by default"? The point is, to make it really useful, it shouldn't require that part of specifying which file to include. Anyway, great that you mention it, because it is probably an overlooked feature.

Regards,
DD

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[Slavik]

I think this is one of the "features" they wanted to reserve for the enterprise edition, so I guess having it automatically pick this up is (for the time being) not on the table, however honestly, given the short time to get the re-writerules into the relevent host template, personally I dont think its an issue.

[Matthew Smith]

I agree, it's really not a issue and it takes 2 seconds to do, the problem is getting people to understand it isn't a issue.

[lsmichael]

Hey, don't use scare quotes! Automatic .htaccess usage is a full-fledged, no-quote feature. (Jokes, jokes.)

It's easy to get around if your .htaccess files don't move and you don't mind restarting every time you change an .htaccess file. This is fine if you're only running a few sites, which is how we want to keep OpenLiteSpeed.

If anyone's got a site they can show moving from Apache and not being hindered by having the rewrite rules in .htaccess, I'd love to put it in the blog, otherwise I'll have to make a demo site...

Any other ideas for how we can get the word out?

m

[Slavik]

I have an idea... maybe... but we need a guini pig :)

Anyway to start a 1-1 conversation in google groups?

[lsmichael]

Honestly, I don't know. But we do all have access to each other's emails...

m

[Cristian B]

Without htaccess support, it's really as much hassle as using nginx. That seems like the only thing keeping me from using it to replace Apache.

[lsmichael]

Howdy Cristian,

As we've been discussing in this thread, a lot of the stuff in your .htaccess files can actually be used by OpenLiteSpeed. You can copy and paste your rewrite rules into OpenLiteSpeed virtual hosts or write an include into your OpenLiteSpeed configurations telling it to read from your .htaccess files. (It will read the rewrite rules and ignore the rest.) While, that's not as easy as dropping Enterprise right on top of Apache, it seems much easier than Nginx. Especially since you don't have to learn a new language. Right?

Now, if you're in shared hosting and you want a way for your users to use overrides without having access to other stuff, well, yeah, then your choices are Enterprise or Apache...

Did I mix something up?

Michael 

[Cristian B]

No, it's just that there's no reason to bother with this unless nginx rewrites are scary.

[lsmichael]

(It seems like) a lot of people think learning Nginx rewrite syntax and converting their rewrites to Nginx is a hassle.

:)

m

[OC2PS]

100% agree with
Guillaume Boudreau
Brian Zerangue
Matthew Smith
Cristian B
It doesn;t make sense for OpenLiteSpeed to omit .htaccess

It's really simple -
if I used Apache, every php app works out of the box.
then I start hitting resource limits or slow performance (less common with Apache 2.4)
so I check out alternatives.
If there is nothing that runs everything out of the box, then I go with nginx as it is the biggest and fastest growing cat (meaning better support, bigger knowledge base, and more battle-tested for me)
Esp. so if my concurrent load is not big enough for something like LiteSpeed to significantly shine over nginx.

The above isn;t a theoretical construct. I actually use nginx. It will take .htaccess support in OpenLiteSpeed to make me move from nginx to OLS.

I know Apache rewrites are supported, but the cost of moving over from nginx is too great. And cost of moving from Apache is also totally non-trivial. Even with rewrite-support, OLS does not lure me viz nginx if I were trying to move from Apache today.

The whole issue is out of the box functionality of php apps. If I have to write the config somewhere (even a copy paste), I am fine with nginx as there;s tons of documentation, support and expertise. Not to mentions lots to htaccess to nginx rewrite converters.

And its not just a one-time deal. Everytime I upgrade the php app, I'll have to go through the rigmarole.

Doesn't make sense.

Things like control panel support make sense as enterprise features.

htaccess compatibility just does not.