[Phplib-users] OT: Virtual server setup/performance

[Mike G. <Mik...@sa...>]

Even though this is off-topic I think this might be not entirely
inappropriate here, since the way users of this list would prefer to set
up their server configuration to handle prepend.php, etc., is perhaps
different than the way that web-hosting services provide.

I have been searching for a new hosting service. [I posted another OT
item about this 10 days ago ;-)  And I received a number of valuable
suggestions as a result of that posting. Many thanks to all who
responded.]

Amongst the many things I have learned in this process is that there are
apparently two rather different ways web hosting services approach
virtual hosting. (That is those web hosting services which accommodate
configuration directives for php include_path and php auto_prepend_file.
I found that most hosting service do not accommodate these configuration
directives at all, other than in .htaccess.) Of course each explains
that their approach is the better one.

In one approach, the one I have with my present hosting service, each
virtually hosted web site has its own instance of Apache. So there are
many httpd daemons running on one physical server (if I have the
terminology and concepts correct). One may have many virtual domains or
subdomains running under this instance of Apache by using the virtual
host configuration directives. In this scenario the hosting service can
grant access to the httpd.conf file, etc., for the user to make any
changes they want and enable to user to restart their instance of Apache
at will.

In the other approach the hosting service has one instance of Apache per
physical server. All virtually hosted sites are handled by one
httpd.conf file. This file cannot obviously be available to anyone but
the hosting service. The ability to enable site owners to make
configuration changes for their virtually hosted sites is accomplished
by pointing the AccessConfig directive for their virtual host to a
directory in their space. They can then add whatever directives they
need to configuration files in this directory.

The net result for configuration would seem to be (at least nearly) the
same in both cases. What I would like to elicit here are some (more or
less) objective pros and cons for the two approaches. It would be
particularly interesting to hear of significant performance differences
for the two approaches, since that is one of major reasons I am being
given by one hosting service to choose their approach.

TIA!

Mike Green