Apache2 MPM-prefork MPM-worker multiple instances on same Ubuntu host machine possible?

Posted by user60985 on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by user60985
Published on 2010-11-21T22:03:32Z Indexed on 2012/06/24 9:17 UTC
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I have a live Apache2/MPM-Worker instance running Django. I want to also run an Apache2/MPM-prefork instance to run some Drupal6 applications on the same host machine and utilize a vast selection of PHP modules that run on the prefork model.

I plan to use my MPM-worker instance to reverse proxy to the Apache2-prefork instance for URLS starting with myhost.com/drupal6/. It seems theoretically doable/configurable by having the second Apache2-prefork instance configured to listen on an internal port, say 127.0.0.1:8080 and having my current Apache2-worker configured to proxy pass and reverse pass to it for the 'drupal6' URLs.

However, how do I compile or install the apache2-prefork version so it has a different executable name than /usr/sbin/apache2, for example /usr/sbin/apache2p, and so apache2ctl has a different name, say apache2pctl, and that apache2pctl invokes the /usr/sbin/apache2p instead of /usr/sbin/apache2... and so on down the line (eg /etc/apache2p) so I can start and restart my two instances independently?

As I understand it, no one executable of 'apache2' can be compiled with both the MPM-prefork and MPM-worker modules, so it seems I need two separate versions of the apache2 MPM flavors. But then I need to invoke and control them by separate names, I assume. I looked at the configuration options for apache2 and I am a bit queasy about compiling a second apache2 version with prefork because I am not sure I can set all the options so that none of my current apache2 files is overwritten. Is there a way?

Is there a standard solution to separately installing and controlling prefork and worker apache2 executables on the same machine without them stepping on each other during installation or operation?

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