In this issue

Apache Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.2.4 (Released 22^nd August 1997) (local download sites)
Beta: 1.3b3 (Released 20^th November 1997) (local download sites)

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.

These bugs have been found and fixed in 1.3b4.

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

• After running a CGI program, Apache does not close all the file handles it opened. This will eventually cause the system to run out of file handles.
• If a CGI script starts with #!, Apache uses the rest of this line as an interpreter to run the script. This fails if there are any spaces between the #! and the interpreter path.

Other Bugs

• Log file can contain garbage instead of the remote username in authenticated area
• If suexec cannot execute the target CGI it reports an error but does not include the "errno" value which gives details of what caused the problem.

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 to prepare for the release of Apache 1.3. During the beta release cycle Apache is in a "feature freeze" where no new features will be added. The only changes from now on will be bug-fixes.

There has been some discussion about changing the name of the Apache executable. At the moment, on Unix, the server binary is called "httpd". This is largely for historical reasons. When Apache was started, it was based on a product from NCSA called "HTTPd". The executable for NCSA HTTPd was called "httpd". Since Apache started out completely compatible with NCSA HTTPd, it too was called httpd. The name has been the same ever since, even though now Apache is considerably different to the latest version of NCSA HTTPd.

Even though the name "httpd" no longer matches the product name (Apache), it is still appropriate for Unix. It implements the "HTTP" protocol, and the "d" means it is a daemon (examples of other products which are named like this include smtpd, named and ftpd).

The name of the executable on Windows, though, is "apache.exe". Windows does not use the term daemon for background processes, so the trailing "d" is not needed. And there is no historical reason to call it "http".

Using different executable names on Windows and Unix is not a problem, apart from documentation which is common to both platforms. Various new naming schemes have been proposed (such as "apache-httpd") to make the name meaningful and consistent across platforms, but nothing has been decided so far. The name of the executable may be changed for Unix in the next beta release, but if so appropriate links will be created so that scripts which expect it to be called "httpd" will continue to work. Even if not changed for 1.3, the name will probably change for the next major release (2.0).