Re: PHP Proxy

My guess is (and actually, I think I heard this from someone at Zend -- but my memory is fuzzy, so don't quote me on that...)

The PASE version of Apache doesn't support any of the i5/OS specific features of Apache. For example, you can't run RPG CGI programs, or run the native connector to Websphere via the PASE version. You can't set up an application that requires a login via a validation list in the PASE version (you'd have to use the AIX htpasswd mechanism instead). You can't do PasswdFile %%SYSTEM%% or UserID %%CLIENT%% in the PASE apache (again, because the PASE apache would be looking for an AIX password file, not i5/OS *USRPRF objects).

Another (perhaps more common) issue... static HTML might be stored in EBCDIC with the native Apache server, and the native server would automatically convert it to ASCII before sending it to the browser. The PASE one would not, since it has no notion of EBCDIC.

So to enable all of the various native i5/OS features of Apache, they use a regular native Apache server as a front-end, and it proxies to the PASE version. Depending on your configuration, the PASE version can merely act as an engine for running PHP, where everything else can be done by the native Apache. (though, by default, I think Zend has everything proxied... but... at least you have the option to change that...)


Alfredo Delgado wrote:

Zend Core runs as an Apache module on an instance of Apache in PASE. You're
expected to use an i5 Apache instance to proxy PHP requests to the Apache
instance in PASE.

Has anyone looked into the benefits of this configuration vs. directing
traffic directly to the instance in PASE?

Alfred