Apache Week
   
   Issue 236, 23rd February 2001:  

Copyright ©2020 Red Hat, Inc

In this issue


Under Development

A large amount of discussion took place this week after a tarball for Apache 1.3.18 was produced for testing. Earlier in the week, Dean Gaudet had committed a patch to unescape the hostname part of a URL (allowing URLs such as www.%61rctic.org to work correctly). It emerged during testing that this change was triggering compiler warnings on many platforms. While the group was not sure whether this would cause any real problems, it was eventually decided to abandon 1.3.18, fix the problem, and release 1.3.19 instead. No new release date has been proposed, although the fix is now committed to CVS.

Several messages came in this week concerning the fact that SGI has decided to drop support for their Accelerating Apache project. This project comprises of a set of patches written by Mike Abbott aiming to increase the performance of Apache 1.3 by up to ten times, and of Apache 2.0 by up to four times . These patches were contributed back to Apache, but never made it into the Apache source tree. In a message to the group, Jim Jagielski summed up the view from the Apache side of the argument, explaining that this came down to a "failure of communications". On a more positive note, Bill Stoddard then announced that he planned to commit one of the patches.

A large number of commits came this week from Roy Fielding as he cleaned up the build system for APR. It was otherwise a relatively quiet week on the CVS commit front.


Poised to be the largest gathering of Apache users to date, ApacheCon 2001 is being held in Santa Clara, USA in April. Registration at the ApacheCon site is now open and if you register for the conference in the next couple of weeks you can save up to US$200 off the entry fee.


Apache Week giveaway

We have four copies of the handy "mod_perl Pocket Reference" to give away to lucky readers. Read our full review of the book which we featured last week.

For a chance to get your hands on a copy of this book, answer this simple question:

Who originally created the Perl scripting language:
A) Al Gore, B) Larry Wall, C) Richard Stallman

Send your answer (A, B, or C) to japh@apacheweek.com to reach us no later than 1st March 2001. Your e-mail address will not be used for anything other than to let you know if you won. Four winners will be drawn using the Perl rand function from all correct entries submitted, one entry per person, no cash alternative, editors' decision is final, so there.


Featured articles

In this section we highlight some of the articles on the web that are of interest to Apache users.

Last November (Apache Week issue 224), we mentioned that APR (Apache Portable Run-time) has spinned off into a separate project. In "Aid From APR", Ryan Bloom explains about its advantages and illustrates his point by comparing a APR segment of code with the native code.

In CNet Builder.com, it's Ryan Bloom again as he talks about how Apache 2.0 is more than a web server as it has the potential to serve any protocol. He reveals the benefits of using a single server for multiple protocols and the way to implement it using Apache 2.0.

Sys Admin magazine presents Apache::Motd, an Apache module based on the "Message Of The Day" utility found on UNIX systems. It intercepts user's initial request and displays the contents of the motd file before serving the requested page. Carlos Ramirez, its creator walks us through the installation and configuration process.


and finally...

What better way to show you are using Apache than to attach an unofficial metal cast of the Apache feather to the outside of your server box? You can now buy one online and it comes with a detachable BSD Daemon.