docs/manual/dso.html.en - httpd - Git at Google

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
 <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><head>
 <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
 <meta content="noindex, nofollow" name="robots" />
 <!--
         XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
               This file is generated from xml source: DO NOT EDIT
         XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
       -->
 <title>Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support - Apache HTTP Server</title>
 <link href="./style/css/manual.css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="Main stylesheet" />
 <link href="./style/css/manual-loose-100pc.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="No Sidebar - Default font size" />
 <link href="./style/css/manual-print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" />
 <link href="./images/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" /><link href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/dso.html" rel="canonical" /></head>
 <body id="manual-page"><div id="page-header">
 <p class="menu"><a href="./mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="./mod/directives.html">Directives</a> | <a href="./faq/">FAQ</a> | <a href="./glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="./sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p>
 <p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.0</p>
 <img alt="" src="./images/feather.gif" /></div>
 <div class="up"><a href="./"><img title="&lt;-" alt="&lt;-" src="./images/left.gif" /></a></div>
 <div id="path">
 <a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> &gt; <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> &gt; <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> &gt; <a href="./">Version 2.0</a></div><div id="page-content"><div class="retired"><h4>Please note</h4>
             <p>This document refers to the <strong>2.0</strong> version of Apache httpd, which <strong>is no longer maintained</strong>. Upgrade, and refer to the current version of httpd instead, documented at:</p>
         <ul><li><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/">Current release version of Apache HTTP Server documentation</a></li></ul><p>You may follow <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/dso.html">this link</a> to go to the current version of this document.</p></div><div id="preamble"><h1>Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support</h1>
 <div class="toplang">
 <p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="./en/dso.html" title="English">&nbsp;en&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./es/dso.html" hreflang="es" rel="alternate" title="Espa&#241;ol">&nbsp;es&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./fr/dso.html" hreflang="fr" rel="alternate" title="Fran&#231;ais">&nbsp;fr&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./ja/dso.html" hreflang="ja" rel="alternate" title="Japanese">&nbsp;ja&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./ko/dso.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean">&nbsp;ko&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./tr/dso.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="T&#252;rk&#231;e">&nbsp;tr&nbsp;</a></p>
 </div>

     <p>The Apache HTTP Server is a modular program where the
     administrator can choose the functionality to include in the
     server by selecting a set of modules. The modules can be
     statically compiled into the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/httpd.html">httpd</a></code> binary when the
     server is built. Alternatively, modules can be compiled as
     Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs) that exist separately from the
     main <code class="program"><a href="./programs/httpd.html">httpd</a></code> binary file. DSO modules may be
     compiled at the time the server is built, or they may be
     compiled and added at a later time using the Apache Extension
     Tool (<code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>).</p>

     <p>This document describes how to use DSO modules as well as
     the theory behind their use.</p>
   </div>
 <div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#implementation">Implementation</a></li>
 <li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#usage">Usage Summary</a></li>
 <li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#background">Background</a></li>
 <li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#advantages">Advantages and Disadvantages</a></li>
 </ul></div>
 <div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
 <div class="section">
 <h2><a name="implementation" id="implementation">Implementation</a></h2>

 <table class="related"><tr><th>Related Modules</th><th>Related Directives</th></tr><tr><td><ul><li><code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code></li></ul></td><td><ul><li><code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code></li></ul></td></tr></table>

     <p>The DSO support for loading individual Apache modules is based
     on a module named <code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code> which must be statically
     compiled into the Apache core. It is the only module besides
     <code class="module"><a href="./mod/core.html">core</a></code> which cannot be put into a DSO
     itself. Practically all other distributed Apache modules can then
     be placed into a DSO by individually enabling the DSO build for
     them via <code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code>'s
     <code>--enable-<em>module</em>=shared</code> option as discussed
     in the <a href="install.html">install documentation</a>. After a
     module is compiled into a DSO named <code>mod_foo.so</code> you
     can use <code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code>'s <code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code> command in your
     <code>httpd.conf</code> file to load this module at server startup
     or restart.</p>

     <p>To simplify this creation of DSO files for Apache modules
     (especially for third-party modules) a new support program
     named <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> (<dfn>APache
     eXtenSion</dfn>) is available. It can be used to build DSO based
     modules <em>outside of</em> the Apache source tree. The idea is
     simple: When installing Apache the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code>'s
     <code>make install</code> procedure installs the Apache C
     header files and puts the platform-dependent compiler and
     linker flags for building DSO files into the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>
     program. This way the user can use <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> to compile
     his Apache module sources without the Apache distribution
     source tree and without having to fiddle with the
     platform-dependent compiler and linker flags for DSO
     support.</p>
 </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
 <div class="section">
 <h2><a name="usage" id="usage">Usage Summary</a></h2>

     <p>To give you an overview of the DSO features of Apache 2.x,
     here is a short and concise summary:</p>

     <ol>
       <li>
         Build and install a <em>distributed</em> Apache module, say
         <code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
         <code>mod_foo.so</code>:

 <div class="example"><p><code>
 $ ./configure --prefix=/path/to/install --enable-foo=shared<br />
 $ make install
 </code></p></div>
       </li>

       <li>
         Build and install a <em>third-party</em> Apache module, say
         <code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
         <code>mod_foo.so</code>:

 <div class="example"><p><code>
 $ ./configure --add-module=module_type:/path/to/3rdparty/mod_foo.c --enable-foo=shared<br />
 $ make install
 </code></p></div>
       </li>

       <li>
         Configure Apache for <em>later installation</em> of shared
         modules:

 <div class="example"><p><code>
 $ ./configure --enable-so<br />
 $ make install
 </code></p></div>
       </li>

       <li>
         Build and install a <em>third-party</em> Apache module, say
         <code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
         <code>mod_foo.so</code> <em>outside of</em> the Apache
         source tree using <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>:

 <div class="example"><p><code>
 $ cd /path/to/3rdparty<br />
 $ apxs -c mod_foo.c<br />
 $ apxs -i -a -n foo mod_foo.la
 </code></p></div>
       </li>
     </ol>

     <p>In all cases, once the shared module is compiled, you must
     use a <code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code>
     directive in <code>httpd.conf</code> to tell Apache to activate
     the module.</p>
 </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
 <div class="section">
 <h2><a name="background" id="background">Background</a></h2>

     <p>On modern Unix derivatives there exists a nifty mechanism
     usually called dynamic linking/loading of <em>Dynamic Shared
     Objects</em> (DSO) which provides a way to build a piece of
     program code in a special format for loading it at run-time
     into the address space of an executable program.</p>

     <p>This loading can usually be done in two ways: Automatically
     by a system program called <code>ld.so</code> when an
     executable program is started or manually from within the
     executing program via a programmatic system interface to the
     Unix loader through the system calls
     <code>dlopen()/dlsym()</code>.</p>

     <p>In the first way the DSO's are usually called <em>shared
     libraries</em> or <em>DSO libraries</em> and named
     <code>libfoo.so</code> or <code>libfoo.so.1.2</code>. They
     reside in a system directory (usually <code>/usr/lib</code>)
     and the link to the executable program is established at
     build-time by specifying <code>-lfoo</code> to the linker
     command. This hard-codes library references into the executable
     program file so that at start-time the Unix loader is able to
     locate <code>libfoo.so</code> in <code>/usr/lib</code>, in
     paths hard-coded via linker-options like <code>-R</code> or in
     paths configured via the environment variable
     <code>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</code>. It then resolves any (yet
     unresolved) symbols in the executable program which are
     available in the DSO.</p>

     <p>Symbols in the executable program are usually not referenced
     by the DSO (because it's a reusable library of general code)
     and hence no further resolving has to be done. The executable
     program has no need to do anything on its own to use the
     symbols from the DSO because the complete resolving is done by
     the Unix loader. (In fact, the code to invoke
     <code>ld.so</code> is part of the run-time startup code which
     is linked into every executable program which has been bound
     non-static). The advantage of dynamic loading of common library
     code is obvious: the library code needs to be stored only once,
     in a system library like <code>libc.so</code>, saving disk
     space for every program.</p>

     <p>In the second way the DSO's are usually called <em>shared
     objects</em> or <em>DSO files</em> and can be named with an
     arbitrary extension (although the canonical name is
     <code>foo.so</code>). These files usually stay inside a
     program-specific directory and there is no automatically
     established link to the executable program where they are used.
     Instead the executable program manually loads the DSO at
     run-time into its address space via <code>dlopen()</code>. At
     this time no resolving of symbols from the DSO for the
     executable program is done. But instead the Unix loader
     automatically resolves any (yet unresolved) symbols in the DSO
     from the set of symbols exported by the executable program and
     its already loaded DSO libraries (especially all symbols from
     the ubiquitous <code>libc.so</code>). This way the DSO gets
     knowledge of the executable program's symbol set as if it had
     been statically linked with it in the first place.</p>

     <p>Finally, to take advantage of the DSO's API the executable
     program has to resolve particular symbols from the DSO via
     <code>dlsym()</code> for later use inside dispatch tables
     <em>etc.</em> In other words: The executable program has to
     manually resolve every symbol it needs to be able to use it.
     The advantage of such a mechanism is that optional program
     parts need not be loaded (and thus do not spend memory) until
     they are needed by the program in question. When required,
     these program parts can be loaded dynamically to extend the
     base program's functionality.</p>

     <p>Although this DSO mechanism sounds straightforward there is
     at least one difficult step here: The resolving of symbols from
     the executable program for the DSO when using a DSO to extend a
     program (the second way). Why? Because "reverse resolving" DSO
     symbols from the executable program's symbol set is against the
     library design (where the library has no knowledge about the
     programs it is used by) and is neither available under all
     platforms nor standardized. In practice the executable
     program's global symbols are often not re-exported and thus not
     available for use in a DSO. Finding a way to force the linker
     to export all global symbols is the main problem one has to
     solve when using DSO for extending a program at run-time.</p>

     <p>The shared library approach is the typical one, because it
     is what the DSO mechanism was designed for, hence it is used
     for nearly all types of libraries the operating system
     provides. On the other hand using shared objects for extending
     a program is not used by a lot of programs.</p>

     <p>As of 1998 there are only a few software packages available
     which use the DSO mechanism to actually extend their
     functionality at run-time: Perl 5 (via its XS mechanism and the
     DynaLoader module), Netscape Server, <em>etc.</em> Starting
     with version 1.3, Apache joined the crew, because Apache
     already uses a module concept to extend its functionality and
     internally uses a dispatch-list-based approach to link external
     modules into the Apache core functionality. So, Apache is
     really predestined for using DSO to load its modules at
     run-time.</p>
 </div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
 <div class="section">
 <h2><a name="advantages" id="advantages">Advantages and Disadvantages</a></h2>

     <p>The above DSO based features have the following
     advantages:</p>

     <ul>
       <li>The server package is more flexible at run-time because
       the actual server process can be assembled at run-time via
       <code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code>
       <code>httpd.conf</code> configuration commands instead of
       <code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code> options at build-time. For instance
       this way one is able to run different server instances
       (standard &amp; SSL version, minimalistic &amp; powered up
       version [mod_perl, PHP3], <em>etc.</em>) with only one Apache
       installation.</li>

       <li>The server package can be easily extended with
       third-party modules even after installation. This is at least
       a great benefit for vendor package maintainers who can create
       a Apache core package and additional packages containing
       extensions like PHP3, mod_perl, mod_fastcgi,
       <em>etc.</em></li>

       <li>Easier Apache module prototyping because with the
       DSO/<code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> pair you can both work outside the
       Apache source tree and only need an <code>apxs -i</code>
       command followed by an <code>apachectl restart</code> to
       bring a new version of your currently developed module into
       the running Apache server.</li>
     </ul>

     <p>DSO has the following disadvantages:</p>

     <ul>
       <li>The DSO mechanism cannot be used on every platform
       because not all operating systems support dynamic loading of
       code into the address space of a program.</li>

       <li>The server is approximately 20% slower at startup time
       because of the symbol resolving overhead the Unix loader now
       has to do.</li>

       <li>The server is approximately 5% slower at execution time
       under some platforms because position independent code (PIC)
       sometimes needs complicated assembler tricks for relative
       addressing which are not necessarily as fast as absolute
       addressing.</li>

       <li>Because DSO modules cannot be linked against other
       DSO-based libraries (<code>ld -lfoo</code>) on all platforms
       (for instance a.out-based platforms usually don't provide
       this functionality while ELF-based platforms do) you cannot
       use the DSO mechanism for all types of modules. Or in other
       words, modules compiled as DSO files are restricted to only
       use symbols from the Apache core, from the C library
       (<code>libc</code>) and all other dynamic or static libraries
       used by the Apache core, or from static library archives
       (<code>libfoo.a</code>) containing position independent code.
       The only chances to use other code is to either make sure the
       Apache core itself already contains a reference to it or
       loading the code yourself via <code>dlopen()</code>.</li>
     </ul>

 </div></div>
 <div class="bottomlang">
 <p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="./en/dso.html" title="English">&nbsp;en&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./es/dso.html" hreflang="es" rel="alternate" title="Espa&#241;ol">&nbsp;es&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./fr/dso.html" hreflang="fr" rel="alternate" title="Fran&#231;ais">&nbsp;fr&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./ja/dso.html" hreflang="ja" rel="alternate" title="Japanese">&nbsp;ja&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./ko/dso.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean">&nbsp;ko&nbsp;</a> |
 <a href="./tr/dso.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="T&#252;rk&#231;e">&nbsp;tr&nbsp;</a></p>
 </div><div id="footer">
 <p class="apache">Copyright 2013 The Apache Software Foundation.<br />Licensed under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License, Version 2.0</a>.</p>
 <p class="menu"><a href="./mod/">Modules</a> | <a href="./mod/directives.html">Directives</a> | <a href="./faq/">FAQ</a> | <a href="./glossary.html">Glossary</a> | <a href="./sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p></div>
 </body></html>
	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
	<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
	<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><head>
	<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type" />
	<meta content="noindex, nofollow" name="robots" />
	<!--
	XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
	This file is generated from xml source: DO NOT EDIT
	XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
	-->
	<title>Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support - Apache HTTP Server</title>
	<link href="./style/css/manual.css" rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="Main stylesheet" />
	<link href="./style/css/manual-loose-100pc.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" title="No Sidebar - Default font size" />
	<link href="./style/css/manual-print.css" rel="stylesheet" media="print" type="text/css" />
	<link href="./images/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" /><link href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/dso.html" rel="canonical" /></head>
	<body id="manual-page"><div id="page-header">
	<p class="menu"><a href="./mod/">Modules</a> \| <a href="./mod/directives.html">Directives</a> \| <a href="./faq/">FAQ</a> \| <a href="./glossary.html">Glossary</a> \| <a href="./sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p>
	<p class="apache">Apache HTTP Server Version 2.0</p>
	<img alt="" src="./images/feather.gif" /></div>
	<div class="up"><a href="./"><img title="<-" alt="<-" src="./images/left.gif" /></a></div>
	<div id="path">
	<a href="http://www.apache.org/">Apache</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/">HTTP Server</a> > <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/">Documentation</a> > <a href="./">Version 2.0</a></div><div id="page-content"><div class="retired"><h4>Please note</h4>
	<p>This document refers to the <strong>2.0</strong> version of Apache httpd, which <strong>is no longer maintained</strong>. Upgrade, and refer to the current version of httpd instead, documented at:</p>
	<ul><li><a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/">Current release version of Apache HTTP Server documentation</a></li></ul><p>You may follow <a href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/dso.html">this link</a> to go to the current version of this document.</p></div><div id="preamble"><h1>Dynamic Shared Object (DSO) Support</h1>
	<div class="toplang">
	<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="./en/dso.html" title="English"> en </a> \|
	<a href="./es/dso.html" hreflang="es" rel="alternate" title="Español"> es </a> \|
	<a href="./fr/dso.html" hreflang="fr" rel="alternate" title="Français"> fr </a> \|
	<a href="./ja/dso.html" hreflang="ja" rel="alternate" title="Japanese"> ja </a> \|
	<a href="./ko/dso.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a> \|
	<a href="./tr/dso.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="Türkçe"> tr </a></p>
	</div>

	<p>The Apache HTTP Server is a modular program where the
	administrator can choose the functionality to include in the
	server by selecting a set of modules. The modules can be
	statically compiled into the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/httpd.html">httpd</a></code> binary when the
	server is built. Alternatively, modules can be compiled as
	Dynamic Shared Objects (DSOs) that exist separately from the
	main <code class="program"><a href="./programs/httpd.html">httpd</a></code> binary file. DSO modules may be
	compiled at the time the server is built, or they may be
	compiled and added at a later time using the Apache Extension
	Tool (<code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>).</p>

	<p>This document describes how to use DSO modules as well as
	the theory behind their use.</p>
	</div>
	<div id="quickview"><ul id="toc"><li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#implementation">Implementation</a></li>
	<li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#usage">Usage Summary</a></li>
	<li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#background">Background</a></li>
	<li><img alt="" src="./images/down.gif" /> <a href="#advantages">Advantages and Disadvantages</a></li>
	</ul></div>
	<div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
	<div class="section">
	<h2><a name="implementation" id="implementation">Implementation</a></h2>

	<table class="related"><tr><th>Related Modules</th><th>Related Directives</th></tr><tr><td><ul><li><code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code></li></ul></td><td><ul><li><code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code></li></ul></td></tr></table>

	<p>The DSO support for loading individual Apache modules is based
	on a module named <code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code> which must be statically
	compiled into the Apache core. It is the only module besides
	<code class="module"><a href="./mod/core.html">core</a></code> which cannot be put into a DSO
	itself. Practically all other distributed Apache modules can then
	be placed into a DSO by individually enabling the DSO build for
	them via <code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code>'s
	<code>--enable-<em>module</em>=shared</code> option as discussed
	in the <a href="install.html">install documentation</a>. After a
	module is compiled into a DSO named <code>mod_foo.so</code> you
	can use <code class="module"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html">mod_so</a></code>'s <code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code> command in your
	<code>httpd.conf</code> file to load this module at server startup
	or restart.</p>

	<p>To simplify this creation of DSO files for Apache modules
	(especially for third-party modules) a new support program
	named <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> (<dfn>APache
	eXtenSion</dfn>) is available. It can be used to build DSO based
	modules <em>outside of</em> the Apache source tree. The idea is
	simple: When installing Apache the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code>'s
	<code>make install</code> procedure installs the Apache C
	header files and puts the platform-dependent compiler and
	linker flags for building DSO files into the <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>
	program. This way the user can use <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> to compile
	his Apache module sources without the Apache distribution
	source tree and without having to fiddle with the
	platform-dependent compiler and linker flags for DSO
	support.</p>
	</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
	<div class="section">
	<h2><a name="usage" id="usage">Usage Summary</a></h2>

	<p>To give you an overview of the DSO features of Apache 2.x,
	here is a short and concise summary:</p>

	<ol>
	<li>
	Build and install a <em>distributed</em> Apache module, say
	<code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
	<code>mod_foo.so</code>:

	<div class="example"><p><code>
	$ ./configure --prefix=/path/to/install --enable-foo=shared<br />
	$ make install
	</code></p></div>
	</li>

	<li>
	Build and install a <em>third-party</em> Apache module, say
	<code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
	<code>mod_foo.so</code>:

	<div class="example"><p><code>
	$ ./configure --add-module=module_type:/path/to/3rdparty/mod_foo.c --enable-foo=shared<br />
	$ make install
	</code></p></div>
	</li>

	<li>
	Configure Apache for <em>later installation</em> of shared
	modules:

	<div class="example"><p><code>
	$ ./configure --enable-so<br />
	$ make install
	</code></p></div>
	</li>

	<li>
	Build and install a <em>third-party</em> Apache module, say
	<code>mod_foo.c</code>, into its own DSO
	<code>mod_foo.so</code> <em>outside of</em> the Apache
	source tree using <code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code>:

	<div class="example"><p><code>
	$ cd /path/to/3rdparty<br />
	$ apxs -c mod_foo.c<br />
	$ apxs -i -a -n foo mod_foo.la
	</code></p></div>
	</li>
	</ol>

	<p>In all cases, once the shared module is compiled, you must
	use a <code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code>
	directive in <code>httpd.conf</code> to tell Apache to activate
	the module.</p>
	</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
	<div class="section">
	<h2><a name="background" id="background">Background</a></h2>

	<p>On modern Unix derivatives there exists a nifty mechanism
	usually called dynamic linking/loading of <em>Dynamic Shared
	Objects</em> (DSO) which provides a way to build a piece of
	program code in a special format for loading it at run-time
	into the address space of an executable program.</p>

	<p>This loading can usually be done in two ways: Automatically
	by a system program called <code>ld.so</code> when an
	executable program is started or manually from within the
	executing program via a programmatic system interface to the
	Unix loader through the system calls
	<code>dlopen()/dlsym()</code>.</p>

	<p>In the first way the DSO's are usually called <em>shared
	libraries</em> or <em>DSO libraries</em> and named
	<code>libfoo.so</code> or <code>libfoo.so.1.2</code>. They
	reside in a system directory (usually <code>/usr/lib</code>)
	and the link to the executable program is established at
	build-time by specifying <code>-lfoo</code> to the linker
	command. This hard-codes library references into the executable
	program file so that at start-time the Unix loader is able to
	locate <code>libfoo.so</code> in <code>/usr/lib</code>, in
	paths hard-coded via linker-options like <code>-R</code> or in
	paths configured via the environment variable
	<code>LD_LIBRARY_PATH</code>. It then resolves any (yet
	unresolved) symbols in the executable program which are
	available in the DSO.</p>

	<p>Symbols in the executable program are usually not referenced
	by the DSO (because it's a reusable library of general code)
	and hence no further resolving has to be done. The executable
	program has no need to do anything on its own to use the
	symbols from the DSO because the complete resolving is done by
	the Unix loader. (In fact, the code to invoke
	<code>ld.so</code> is part of the run-time startup code which
	is linked into every executable program which has been bound
	non-static). The advantage of dynamic loading of common library
	code is obvious: the library code needs to be stored only once,
	in a system library like <code>libc.so</code>, saving disk
	space for every program.</p>

	<p>In the second way the DSO's are usually called <em>shared
	objects</em> or <em>DSO files</em> and can be named with an
	arbitrary extension (although the canonical name is
	<code>foo.so</code>). These files usually stay inside a
	program-specific directory and there is no automatically
	established link to the executable program where they are used.
	Instead the executable program manually loads the DSO at
	run-time into its address space via <code>dlopen()</code>. At
	this time no resolving of symbols from the DSO for the
	executable program is done. But instead the Unix loader
	automatically resolves any (yet unresolved) symbols in the DSO
	from the set of symbols exported by the executable program and
	its already loaded DSO libraries (especially all symbols from
	the ubiquitous <code>libc.so</code>). This way the DSO gets
	knowledge of the executable program's symbol set as if it had
	been statically linked with it in the first place.</p>

	<p>Finally, to take advantage of the DSO's API the executable
	program has to resolve particular symbols from the DSO via
	<code>dlsym()</code> for later use inside dispatch tables
	<em>etc.</em> In other words: The executable program has to
	manually resolve every symbol it needs to be able to use it.
	The advantage of such a mechanism is that optional program
	parts need not be loaded (and thus do not spend memory) until
	they are needed by the program in question. When required,
	these program parts can be loaded dynamically to extend the
	base program's functionality.</p>

	<p>Although this DSO mechanism sounds straightforward there is
	at least one difficult step here: The resolving of symbols from
	the executable program for the DSO when using a DSO to extend a
	program (the second way). Why? Because "reverse resolving" DSO
	symbols from the executable program's symbol set is against the
	library design (where the library has no knowledge about the
	programs it is used by) and is neither available under all
	platforms nor standardized. In practice the executable
	program's global symbols are often not re-exported and thus not
	available for use in a DSO. Finding a way to force the linker
	to export all global symbols is the main problem one has to
	solve when using DSO for extending a program at run-time.</p>

	<p>The shared library approach is the typical one, because it
	is what the DSO mechanism was designed for, hence it is used
	for nearly all types of libraries the operating system
	provides. On the other hand using shared objects for extending
	a program is not used by a lot of programs.</p>

	<p>As of 1998 there are only a few software packages available
	which use the DSO mechanism to actually extend their
	functionality at run-time: Perl 5 (via its XS mechanism and the
	DynaLoader module), Netscape Server, <em>etc.</em> Starting
	with version 1.3, Apache joined the crew, because Apache
	already uses a module concept to extend its functionality and
	internally uses a dispatch-list-based approach to link external
	modules into the Apache core functionality. So, Apache is
	really predestined for using DSO to load its modules at
	run-time.</p>
	</div><div class="top"><a href="#page-header"><img alt="top" src="./images/up.gif" /></a></div>
	<div class="section">
	<h2><a name="advantages" id="advantages">Advantages and Disadvantages</a></h2>

	<p>The above DSO based features have the following
	advantages:</p>

	<ul>
	<li>The server package is more flexible at run-time because
	the actual server process can be assembled at run-time via
	<code class="directive"><a href="./mod/mod_so.html#loadmodule">LoadModule</a></code>
	<code>httpd.conf</code> configuration commands instead of
	<code class="program"><a href="./programs/configure.html">configure</a></code> options at build-time. For instance
	this way one is able to run different server instances
	(standard & SSL version, minimalistic & powered up
	version [mod_perl, PHP3], <em>etc.</em>) with only one Apache
	installation.</li>

	<li>The server package can be easily extended with
	third-party modules even after installation. This is at least
	a great benefit for vendor package maintainers who can create
	a Apache core package and additional packages containing
	extensions like PHP3, mod_perl, mod_fastcgi,
	<em>etc.</em></li>

	<li>Easier Apache module prototyping because with the
	DSO/<code class="program"><a href="./programs/apxs.html">apxs</a></code> pair you can both work outside the
	Apache source tree and only need an <code>apxs -i</code>
	command followed by an <code>apachectl restart</code> to
	bring a new version of your currently developed module into
	the running Apache server.</li>
	</ul>

	<p>DSO has the following disadvantages:</p>

	<ul>
	<li>The DSO mechanism cannot be used on every platform
	because not all operating systems support dynamic loading of
	code into the address space of a program.</li>

	<li>The server is approximately 20% slower at startup time
	because of the symbol resolving overhead the Unix loader now
	has to do.</li>

	<li>The server is approximately 5% slower at execution time
	under some platforms because position independent code (PIC)
	sometimes needs complicated assembler tricks for relative
	addressing which are not necessarily as fast as absolute
	addressing.</li>

	<li>Because DSO modules cannot be linked against other
	DSO-based libraries (<code>ld -lfoo</code>) on all platforms
	(for instance a.out-based platforms usually don't provide
	this functionality while ELF-based platforms do) you cannot
	use the DSO mechanism for all types of modules. Or in other
	words, modules compiled as DSO files are restricted to only
	use symbols from the Apache core, from the C library
	(<code>libc</code>) and all other dynamic or static libraries
	used by the Apache core, or from static library archives
	(<code>libfoo.a</code>) containing position independent code.
	The only chances to use other code is to either make sure the
	Apache core itself already contains a reference to it or
	loading the code yourself via <code>dlopen()</code>.</li>
	</ul>

	</div></div>
	<div class="bottomlang">
	<p><span>Available Languages: </span><a href="./en/dso.html" title="English"> en </a> \|
	<a href="./es/dso.html" hreflang="es" rel="alternate" title="Español"> es </a> \|
	<a href="./fr/dso.html" hreflang="fr" rel="alternate" title="Français"> fr </a> \|
	<a href="./ja/dso.html" hreflang="ja" rel="alternate" title="Japanese"> ja </a> \|
	<a href="./ko/dso.html" hreflang="ko" rel="alternate" title="Korean"> ko </a> \|
	<a href="./tr/dso.html" hreflang="tr" rel="alternate" title="Türkçe"> tr </a></p>
	</div><div id="footer">
	<p class="apache">Copyright 2013 The Apache Software Foundation.<br />Licensed under the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0">Apache License, Version 2.0</a>.</p>
	<p class="menu"><a href="./mod/">Modules</a> \| <a href="./mod/directives.html">Directives</a> \| <a href="./faq/">FAQ</a> \| <a href="./glossary.html">Glossary</a> \| <a href="./sitemap.html">Sitemap</a></p></div>
	</body></html>