In this issue

Apache Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.2.4 (Released 22^nd August 1997) (local download sites)
Beta: 1.3b2 (Released 16^th October 1997) (local download sites)

• A request with a Range header with a start byte beyond the end of the file, or a range longer than the file, will cause Apache to reply with invalid length and range information.

Apache 1.2.4 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.2.3 and earlier should upgrade to this version. The next release will be 1.3. A beta test release of 1.3 is available now for both Unix and Windows 95/NT systems. It is currently only available as source code.

This week sees the launch of a survey to find out a bit more about how Apache is being used in business and commerce. We all know that Apache is by far the most popular web server, with over 48% of the World's sites using it, but that does not tell us much detail about how Apache is being used. Is it primarily used on hosting sites, or do end-users use it? Is it being used as a basis for developing commerce systems, or is it used just for serving pages? These are some of the questions we hope to answer with this survey.

Please take a few moments to fill out the survey. There are only 11 questions, and the information should give us a much better idea of how Apache is being used in business.

This survey is being run jointly by Apache Week and SOMA MarketNet, a market research organisation focused on information technology. Anyone taking part in the survey can get the full results from SOMA, and Apache Week will summarise the results once they have been tabulated.

Please enter the survey at http://www.soma-esurvey.com/.

Apache 1.3 is now in beta test. The most recent release is 1.3b2 (there was no 1.3b1). This is available in source form for both Unix and Windows 95/NT. It was hoped to get a binary release for Windows, but this is likely to be available for the next beta because of a number of important bugs found and fixed in 1.3b2.

These bugs have been found and fixed in 1.3b3. Because of the major differences between Windows and Unix, these are separated into bugs which affect Windows systems only, and other bugs (which may affect Windows as well). Unix users can ignore the bugs listed in the Windows section.

Windows-specific Bugs

• If run with -i or -u to install or uninstall the Apache service, Apache would not notify the user of any errors which occurred updating the services.

• Various fixes to mod_mime_magic, to enable .gz files to be uncompressed, avoid memory and resource leaks, and not to treat all errors as meaning the content is not available.
• AIX 1.* cannot have an @ character in filenames. The proxy module could write out cache files including an @ in the name.
• Regular expressions do not work under Solaris 2.4. This is fixed by using Apache's built-in regular expression code rather than the operating system provided functions.
• A mod_rewrite rule which included a ? part in the right-hand side and was used in a .htaccess would cause the ? character to be escaped in the re-written URL.
• IP addresses used on allow and deny may be calculated incorrectly, preventing the restriction from working correctly.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.2.4 may be made available in the apply to 1.2.4 directory on the Apache site. Some new features and other unofficial patches are available in the 1.2 patches directory. For details of all previously reported bugs, see the Apache bug database and known bugs pages. Also many common configuration questions are answered in the Apache FAQ.

Development has slowed down over the last couple of weeks to prepare for the release of Apache 1.3. Now that the first beta is out, Apache is in a "feature freeze" where no new features will be added. The only changes from now on will be bug-fixes.

The configuration files distributed with Apache (httpd.conf, srm.conf, access.conf) have traditionally assumed that the server will be installed into the directory /usr/local/etc/httpd. This has now been changed to the simpler /usr/local/apache. This is also changed in the code, so if no -f or -d command line options are given, Apache will use the directory /usr/local/apache as its server root. If you currently run Apache with no -f or -d options, you will have to use one of these options with the next beta to ensure that Apache can find your server root directory.

This only applies to Unix versions of Apache.

The way that Apache reads its configuration files has been changed. This will let modules, such as mod_perl, feed information into the configuration (inside from <Perl> sections).