[Mono-list] mod_mono and userdir

[Torstensson, Patrik]

Hi,

> In most cases the servers are used to serve applications not multiple
> users running multiple applications (at least in the business 
> world) so
> perhaps it is something that can be delayed for a while.

True. 
 
> Regarding IIS 6, it has a few configurations:
> - Running all applications on a single Application Host 
> (similar to the
> medium isolation level in IIS 5.0 which ran all application under the
> same dllhost process.

I'm was talking about ASP.NET application hosts. It's still possible to
configure asp.net to use web gardens and/or isolation for applications
(meaning it will create multiple .net application hosts for the
application).

> - Defining an Application Host for a single application 
> (similar to IIS
> 5.0 high isolation level which actually had a process per 
> high isolation
> application).
> - Defining a Web Garden which hosts several applications on the same
> Application Host (a new feature in IIS 6.0).

Still, in reality web gardens creates multiple application hosts for
each "garden" instance. This mode is really cool but remember that
asp.net it self has the same functionality (running on iis 5/4). When I
say the the same functionality I mean from the point of view that it
will create separate processes (and bind them with a process affinity)
and not the kernel restart stuff. It's configured via the <processModel>
tag in Machine.config.

> Regarding the security issues, impersonation of a user for a process
> doesn't require that much in UNIX/Linux right? I haven't done this
> myself in UNIX/Linux but I presume it shouldn't be that hard.

It's not a problem if we just need to support the fact of running as one
user but I think Apache can handle that to for the mod but I'm not 100%
sure. Normally ASP.NET application host (managed world) should support
impersonation via the System.Web.Hosting.ApplicationHost but that still
on my todo list. That would give us a lot more control over when we are
running as system and when we are running as a user.

> I know it might be a lot of work but unless given other possibilities
> with similar functionality for running ASP.NET (both applications and
> Web Services), people would be forced to take IIS 6.0 (there is also a
> specific Windows 2003 version for the web with web acceleration in the
> kernel).

The web acceleration stuff is in all kernels (https.sys), the web
version is only a license solution, limiting the possibilities to use
other services on that version.
 
> Don't forget that Microsoft is improving Windows in such ways 
> that in a
> certain point it might be a worthy adversary for Linux in the web
> market. 
> The current implementation of mod_mono is similar to IIS 5.0 and
> ASP.NET. It might seem that IIS is a server that simply 
> support ASP.NET
> in version 6.0 it is getting a little bit close (even too close) to be
> an integral part of .NET and we must accommodate this whole by supply
> this missing functionality.

I agree that we should support the same options, is not that hard and we
could implement it using managed environment making it possible to port
to other web platforms.

Cheers
 Patrik