In this issue

Apache 1.3.9 was released on 20^th August 1999 and is now the latest version of the Apache server. The previous release was 1.3.6 (versions 1.3.7 and 1.3.8 were never made publically available). Apache 1.3.9 is available in source form for compiling on Unix or Windows, in pre-compiled form for many common versions of Unix, and pre-compiled as an single-file installer on Windows. All the pre-compiled forms also include full source code. All all available for download from any Apache local download site.

This is a bug fix and minor upgrade release, with a few new features. Users on Unix systems should upgrade to fix various bugs. Users on Windows systems will find a number of useful fixes and improvements so should definitely upgrade.

The main new features in 1.3.9 (compared to 1.3.6) are:

• A New Mass virtual hosting module has been added making it easy to have sites with many hundred (or thousand) virtual hosts. More Details.
• Sites with a large number of virtual hosts will find Apache starts up and restarts much faster as the checking of all the document root directories can be disabled. More Details.
• Support for XML 1.0. Although XML is not currently used within the core of Apache, a number of add-on modules will find this useful. More Details.
• A new authentication module which conforms to the latest digest authentication draft standard has been added. This module is marked as experimental but should be used instead of the old mod_digest module which was not supported by browsers. More Details.
• The directives used to configure environment variables passed to CGI scripts (such as SetEnv) can now be altered on a per-directory basis. This means they can now be used inside .htaccess files. More Details
• A change to the automatic index generation module, mod_autoindex allows the ReadmeName and Headername files to be determined by multiviews or be server-parsed documents.
• Changes to the directive "SetEnvIf" to allow it to test environment vaiables as well as the request protocol. More Details.
• Updated support for Mac OS X More Details), Tandem, and TPF platforms.
• Lots of updates to allow DSO support for various platforms.
• A New directive allows the mod_usertrack module to customise the name of the cookie used for tracking users. More Details.
• Add "force-no-vary" variable to allow servers to work around clients that choke on "Vary" fields in the response header. More Details.
• The problem with Basic Authentication passwords on Windows with Apache 1.3.6 has been fixed.
• A new encoding method for Basic Authentication passwords, SHA1, has been added. This allows compatibility with passwords used on Netscape servers. More Details.
• The Windows version of Apache has been updated so that it can be compiled with Visual Studio 6 and use InstallShield 5.5 for the installer.
• Changes to Apache on Windows to bring it into line with the behaviour on Unix: CGI scripts now run non-buffered on the NT platform, error messages sent by CGI scripts are now correctly logged to the error log, graceful restarts are now correctly handled. More Details.

Apache Web Server Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.3.9 (Released 20^th August 1999) (local download sites)
Beta: None

Apache 1.3.9 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.3.6 and earlier should upgrade to this version.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.3.9 will be made available in the apply_to_1.3.9 subdirectory of the patches directory on the Apache site. Some new features and other unofficial patches are available in the 1.3 patches directory. 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.