I thought this would be relevant enough group to ask this server side
question and it seems most people are not paranoid, suicidal or overly
mean because their programming model is too complex, in this open
source technology group. I work with PHP pages (alot), with allot of
graphics --- my basic question and concept I yet do not fully
understand (hope to have someone clarify, or even explain carefully
how it works): and "it" is this:

when one uploads using FTP a file to a Webserver, let us say a Linux
or Unix Webserver model tied to a .com domain for instance...., when
you upload it, a file, video, swf, or whatever --- for the sake of
argument, would an apache server switch to the new uploaded file only
after if it was completely uploaded/server transaction complete. Any
1 second downtimes or instantly available without microseconds of
downtime? How does this work?

I know cache and other issues come into play at the client level, so
maybe separately, someone can suggest some basic things I need to do
to make sure people *always* receive the latest content I create, ....
presumably we are talking about PHP objects with linked images,
standard fare.

Some ideas would be great.

Thanks a million! Have a great day!

Most sincerely, Alxasa

alxasa [at] gmail.com wrote:
> I thought this would be relevant enough group to ask this server side
> question and it seems most people are not paranoid, suicidal or overly
> mean because their programming model is too complex, in this open
> source technology group. I work with PHP pages (alot), with allot of
> graphics --- my basic question and concept I yet do not fully
> understand (hope to have someone clarify, or even explain carefully
> how it works): and "it" is this:
>
> when one uploads using FTP a file to a Webserver, let us say a Linux
> or Unix Webserver model tied to a .com domain for instance...., when
> you upload it, a file, video, swf, or whatever --- for the sake of
> argument, would an apache server switch to the new uploaded file only
> after if it was completely uploaded/server transaction complete. Any
> 1 second downtimes or instantly available without microseconds of
> downtime? How does this work?

If the apache has access to the ftp-upload directory in some way, as soon as
the file is created (that starts to create a start inode on the filesystem),
the apache can try to access the file, of course not until the whole file is
uploaded it will be able to do anything serious.


> I know cache and other issues come into play at the client level, so
> maybe separately, someone can suggest some basic things I need to do
> to make sure people *always* receive the latest content I create, ....
> presumably we are talking about PHP objects with linked images,
> standard fare.

File cache of a file is flushed when the file next time is accessed and the
time in the cache no longer matches the one on the filesystem.


Depending on addons and/or php features used, you may have "prepossessed php
source", which will cause other results which has nothing to do with the file
system of the server.

--

//Aho