general - How to install new builds of apache module without segfaulting?

Hi everyone.

I would like to know how I can install new builds of my custom apache module without segfaulting as new requests come in, before apache can be restarted.

Background:

I have authored a custom apache module. I am running Linux. I notice that whenever I install it over the old .so while apache is running and then request a page, I get a segfault in each running apache process. I assume this is because the previous .so is memory mapped by the system loader.

This is not a problem for me during development phase. However, now we are moving into a production phase in an environment with 10 requests/sec. Segfaulting all the httpd at once seems like a pretty bad idea.

Has anyone dealt with this? Is there a recommended procedure?

Copy it over as a brand new file, update the configuration to point to the new file, and do a "graceful" restart.
And it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep the old one around in case there are problems with the new one.

That makes an awful lot of sense. thanks.

We're bullding custom RPMs anyway, so the RPM install script can automate that.