In this issue

Apache 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 on Unix systems should upgrade to this version. Users of Apache on Windows can now upgrade to Apache 1.3.9 avoiding the previous problems with Apache 1.3.6. Read the Guide to 1.3.9 for information about changes between 1.3.6 and 1.3.9.

Most bugs listed below include a link to the entry in the Apache bug database where the problem is being tracked. These entries are called "PR"s (Problem Reports). Some bugs do not correspond to problem reports if they are found by developers.

These bugs have been found in 1.3.9 and will be fixed in the next release. 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

• CGI requests can get stuck in an infinite loop. PR#3599, PR#3971, PR#4245, PR#4430, PR#4758, PR#5171
• The commands net start apache and apache -k shutdown are broken on NT 4 with Service Pack 5.

Other Bugs

• EBCDIC translation on platforms that support mmap is broken causing binary files to fail.
• ApacheBench can perform more connections than requested. PR#4839
• mod_rewrite only allows a limited number of URL schemes, stopping redirects to schemes such as ldap:, news:, and mailto: PR#3140
• mod_rewrite incorrectly unescapes query strings in rewrite rules. PR#4734
• mod_rewrite internally substituted the ampersand as a back reference, confusing rewrites involving query strings. The module also did not honour escaping, making it hard to use the dollar character. PR#4766, PR#4161
• mod_rewrite incorrectly strips the query string from a URL used with the proxy flag. (This bug was introduced in Apache 1.3.9). PR#5073

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.

The second official Apache conference, ApacheCon 2000, takes place March 8th-10th 2000 in Orlando, Florida. The closing date for proposals to present a session has now passed and the conference committee are currently deciding on the conference schedule. Apache Week is proud to be an official sponsor of ApacheCon 2000 and will keep you updated on conference news between now and March.

The October Netcraft Server Survey shows Apache losing market share to Microsoft, taking it to 56% of the server market. However, this is mostly due to a single ISP who have a large number of virtual hosts running IIS. This isn't the first time that a single company has been able to skew the survey, in Apache Week issue 164 we explained how a single ISP that had over 90,000 sites caused a large impact in the results.

Another ISP, homepage.com, has set up their systems so that every possible combination of hostname (such as http://apacheweek-testing.homepage.com/) responds to a web page request. This means that they could potentially register billions of sites with the Netcraft Survey giving Apache just under 100% market share. Other surveys have tried to combat this by restricting themselves to looking at the sites run by known or large companies. In Apache Week issue 172 we suggested that looking at sites running secure servers with valid third-party certificates gives a better indication to the state of the market.

The on-line site check from Netcraft shows that Amazon.com are now using Stronghold, an Apache-based server, to serve their sites. The switch, from an old version of the Netscape server, happened earlier this week.