In this issue

Apache Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.2.6 (Released 24^th March 1998) (local download sites)
Beta: 1.3b6 (Released 20^th April 1998) (local download sites)

Apache 1.2.6 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.2.5 and earlier should upgrade to this version since it fixes a number of bugs and potential security problems.

These bugs have been found in 1.3b6 and will be fixed in the next beta (1.3b7).

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

• There is a bug in the way Windows uses the network. Apache works around this bug, and logs the fact with a message like "[warn] (2)No such file or directory: select claimed we could write, but in fact we couldn't. This is a bug in Windows.". This is to encourage people to contact the vendor of the operating system to get it fixed. From the full release, this message will be logged at debug level, so it will not appear by default in the error log.

Other Bugs

• The proxy module would store an incorrect content length when it updated a previously cached file. PR#2094.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.2.6 may be made available in the apply_to_1.2.6 subdirectory of the patches directory on the Apache site (this directory may not exist if no patches are available). Some new features and other unofficial patches are available in the 1.2 patches directory (these may not apply cleanly to 1.2.6). For details of all previously reported bugs, see the Apache bug database and known bugs pages. 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 major new features will be added.

On every response, Apache includes a header containing its name and version number. In addition, large modules can add their name and version number at compilation time. However modules which are added at runtime cannot get their name onto the server header, so from the next beta a new API function will be provided which lets modules announce themselves. This should only be used by major modules (for example, mod_perl and mod_php).

Also, from the next release, each response will include on the server header the type of operating system being used, which will be one of "Unix", "Win32", "OS/2" or "BS2000".

It will also be possible for the administrator to control how much of this information is returned in every response. A new directive, ServerTokens, can be used to return one of

• The normal (full) information
• Just the Apache name and version number with platform information, but no module information
• Just the Apache name and version number, with no platform or module information

Under Unix, if a child process dies unexpectly due to a signal, the parent process will log the name and number of the signal.