Posted by "Nicolas Ross" on 11/14/05 18:25

I've finally narrow-it down and found a solution.

After much, much googeling, trying and error on my test machine and my
xserve running mac os x 10.4, I've found out that apache2 was shipped with
mac os X 10.4 server (server only).

I decided to compile my own php (as allways) againts this apache, and it
works, and it's fast !

This apache is in /opt/apache2, and is only configured with the default from
the apache distribution. The version that comes with os x 10.4 also suffers
from a bug in apr preventing it from delivering more than 64k of content.
But that's not important. I examined the compile option in
/opt/apache2/build/config.nice, and saw something verry importent :

--with-mpm=worker

Php compiled againts this apache works ok. But if I compile my own apache2,
with --with-mpm=worker, apache won't start saying php needs to be
recompiling.

Php's manual about apache2 clearly states not to use worker mpm. Ok, I took
the libphp4.so from the php compiled againts the stock apache2 from /opt,
and copied it into my own apache2 compiled with my usual configure options,
and all is well and fast.

After comparing phpinfo's output from my ususal php and the one's compiled
againts /opt/apache2's apache, I only see 2 difference.

Virtual Directory Support and Thread safety is enabled on the good apache
from /opt/apache2...

Now, after examining the output from configure command, and greping for
safety and all in my source tree, I found that --enable-experimental-zts is
enabling this. So, I tried agin my own php configure option, with my own
apache (without specifing mpm=worker), but with --enable-experimental-zts,
and voilà ! All is great.


Now to my question :

Why is that enabling threat safety in php afects the performance of apache2
accessing the filesystem ?

Nicolas

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