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mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

wasmlabs.dev

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Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#22

Post by _joel »

egberts1 wrote: post #20
colordrops wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons PHP gained so much traction was because it is very easy to deploy and run, no dependency hell. WASM is self-contained and has the same property.

Now it is the battle of keeping the zillions of JavaScript packages vs PHP packages up … to … date. I think WASM may have bigger problems with external vulnerability assessment team identifying those modules by version that got broken.

I don't think they're different issues in terms of solution, important, of course.

Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#24

Post by pdpi »

politelemon wrote: post #7

I struggle to understand wasm, though I'm interested. What does this part mean? > Internally, it uses the wasmtime runtime to configure, initialize, and run the Wasm modules. What is wasmtime? I looked at its page and couldn't figure out what they mean by a wasm runtime. I thought the runtime was in the browser. Wouldn't a user just need to compile and just a binary?

Easiest comparison is the JVM. You can run Java wherever you have a JVM, be it the browser or the server or a desktop application. WASM is basically the moral equivalent of JVM bytecode, so you need the moral equivalent of the JVM to run it.

While all major browsers have wasm support (the wasm "JVM") as part of their javascript stack, there's also standalone wasm runtimes, with wasmtime being one of those.

Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#25

Post by baby »

I always found it uber cumbersome to deal with apache to setup different webservers with different domains and different stacks (php, golang, node, etc.) on a linux server.

I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years and I still hate it and I’m still quite lost in the commands I need to run, the folders and files and cfgs I need to maintain.

Am I just a linux noob and this is completely normal user experience?

Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#26

Post by BeefWellington »

baby wrote: post #25

I always found it uber cumbersome to deal with apache to setup different webservers with different domains and different stacks (php, golang, node, etc.) on a linux server. I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years and I still hate it and I’m still quite lost in the commands I need to run, the folders and files and cfgs I need to maintain. Am I just a linux noob and this is completely normal user experience?

Apache itself is eminently manageable on its own; IMO the real issue is how insanely over-complicated and opinionated every distribution makes their configuration.

I tend to discard any given distribution's default configuration for a more simplistic one where httpd.conf is the source of truth. This is very simple for 90% of my use cases, and for the other 10% I can adopt of a "modules-enabled, sites-enabled, conf-enabled, kitchen-sink-enabled" type approach.

Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#27

Post by encryptluks2 »

politelemon wrote: post #7

I struggle to understand wasm, though I'm interested. What does this part mean? > Internally, it uses the wasmtime runtime to configure, initialize, and run the Wasm modules. What is wasmtime? I looked at its page and couldn't figure out what they mean by a wasm runtime. I thought the runtime was in the browser. Wouldn't a user just need to compile and just a binary?

It appears to be a language that you compile another language into so that you can get more inception-like while sacrificing performance optimizations of using a native language.

Re: mod_wasm: Run WebAssembly with Apache

#29

Post by orev »

baby wrote: post #25

I always found it uber cumbersome to deal with apache to setup different webservers with different domains and different stacks (php, golang, node, etc.) on a linux server. I’ve been doing it for more than 10 years and I still hate it and I’m still quite lost in the commands I need to run, the folders and files and cfgs I need to maintain. Am I just a linux noob and this is completely normal user experience?

The biggest problem with Apache httpd is how many awful copy/paste blogs there are out there telling you how to do things on Ubuntu, which has no resemblance at all to actually managing httpd. Everything explains how to use some silly wrapper script like a2enmod to do something when all you really need is to make a symlink or something like that. IMO, the Ubuntu method of managing httpd could easily be responsible for why so many people think nginx is easier.

Use a RHEL based system and manually edit the files yourself. It’s very easy.

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