Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 15:42:18 +0100 (CET)
From: Sascha Schumann <sascha AT schumann DOT cx>
To: ircg@lists.scs-web.de
Subject: [ircg] IRCG 4

    Hi!

    Work on IRCG 4 has commenced.  The primary aims are:

    Support wider range of web servers

      IRCG 4 will be able to run inside Apache.

    Improve hardware scalability

      IRCG 4's tasks will be divided up so that they can be
      scheduled on multiple CPUs.

    Improve reliability

      IRCG 4 will survive failures in non-IRCG parts, such as the
      web server or PHP.

    IRCG 4 will run in a separate process which is forked off
    during the web server's start. *

    The separate process contains multiple threads (based on
    State Threads) and fulfills these tasks: **

      Manage all IRC connections
      Running IRCG handlers (e.g. crafting output messages)
      Manage out-going data (e.g. data flowing over HTTP
      connections)

    HTTP workers (e.g. Apache children) do the following:

      Accept and process HTTP requests
      Pass sockets to the IRCG process
      Potentially block (e.g. database requests) without harming
      the user experience

    The C API will remain mostly unchanged.  New API calls will
    be introduced for properly management of central data
    structure's lifetime.

    * At a later point in time, it might also be possible to have
      a persistently running IRCG server which the web server
      talks to using shared memory and a local socket.

    ** This might change to POSIX threads at some point in time
       to further improve scalability.

    - Sascha