When I upgraded my server to Apache 2.4, I lamented that the choice had killed any ability I had to run SPDY. This led to me installing an Nginx proxy on my box and being pretty happy with it.
I wanted to like the idea of SPDY on Apache, but there were serious issues with mod_spdy. First of all, it’s incompatible with Apache version 2.4. That sucks. While someone had forked it, issue number two made me worry. You see, mod_spdy requires OpenSSL version 1.0.1c and modifies mod_ssl. If it was Google’s suggestions for it, I might be okay, but now we’re talking about trusting some random person out there. No. Finally the dippy thing hadn’t been updated in years.
Someone finally shamed Google enough, because earlier this year Google gave mod_spdy to Apache. The plan is for it to be a part of Apache 2.4, as well as the future 2.6/3.0 world:
Being a part of Apache core will make SPDY support even more widely available for Apache httpd users, and pave the way for HTTP/2.0. It will also further improve that support over the original version of mod_spdy by better integrating SPDY and HTTP/2.0’s multiplexing features with the core part of the server.
Finally!
Except not. Sadly, there’s been very little activity since this summer. You can look at the code on Apache SVN and mod_spdy hasn’t been touched in 3 months. It’s sad to see this linger. I had high hopes that Apache would jump and run, but they haven’t even made it work with Apache 2.4 yet.
I’m not going to hold my breath for parity on this one just yet.
Comments
5 responses to “Take my SPDY, Please”
SPDY is so easy in nginx. And it’s maintained! 😛
Seriously, just dump Apache. Use nginx straight up instead of as a proxy.
@Ryan Hellyer and @Otto: Because I don’t want to rebuild this server AND I support more than just myself here and have to make sure I do it without downtime for all apps.
Right now, it’s just not something I have the time for. I’m well aware Apache’s becoming the IIS of the 2000’s. Eventually I’ll get there. It’s just not today.
Why do you use Apache instead of just raw Nginx?
@Ryan Hellyer:
We probably have users to support, users who demand things like .htaccess files.
I know, it’s a shame that the NGINX people decided not to implement that (even while understanding their reasons)