Apache Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.3.9 (Released 20th 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.
A large number of patches have been made to the 1.3.9 code
over the last couple of weeks in preparation for a 1.3.10
release in the future. There is no release date set for
1.3.10 but it is unlikely to be released until the new year.
-
mod_rewrite would incorrectly expand
back-references. PR#4766,
PR#5389.
-
Authentication on a location configured as a pass-through
proxy using ProxyPass would fail.
-
Changes to EBCDIC support including fixing problems when
using chunked encoding, and replacing occurrences in Apache
of "\012\015" with a macro.
-
Changes to the build process including automatically
searching for a system dependant header, consistency
cleanups to APXS, correctly detecting builds for the TPF
platform, and adding a layout for the SuSE linux
distribution (PR#5112)
-
A new option to the log file format, "%q" has been added.
This option returns information passwd in the query string.
PR#5174
-
A few fixes to the original digest module,
mod_auth_digest to better check the
Authorization header and fix a potential core dump.
-
Fixes for DSO support on AIX including using native DSO
support with AIX 4.3 and later. PR#5309
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.
A number of small feature additions have been made which will
appear in Apache 1.3.10 when it is released.
-
The HP MPE/iX port of Apache has been worked on and will
include DSO support for the first time.
-
Script handling through mod_actions has been
updated so that it can deal with arbitrary methods and not
just the well-known ones.
-
Initial support for the IBM OS/390 operating system has
been incorporated
-
A new directive, AddCharset has been added.
This directive is useful when content negotation is being
used as the server can return a document based on the
charset preference of the client.
The second official Apache conference, ApacheCon 2000, takes
place March 8th-10th 2000 in Orlando, Florida. Apache Week is
a sponsor of ApacheCon 2000 and will keep you updated on
conference news between now and March.
You can now register on-line for ApacheCon 2000 using a
credit card and a secure web browser. By registering for the
conference early, ApacheCon are offering a discount of US$225
off the full conference price.
The Elliptic Curve Discrete Logarithms project (ECC2K-108) is
using a network of distributed volunteers to solve part of
Certicom's ECC challenge. If ECDL wins the challenge, the
prize is US$10000 with US$1000 each going to the volunteers
finding the solution and US$8000 donated to The Apache
Software Foundation. Information and
client programs are available.
The Mars Polar Lander mission has featured in the news over
the last couple of weeks as flight controllers failed to make
contact with the lander. The web site needed to cope with the
enormous number of hits expected and Apache was chosen for
its flexibility and reliability. A technical
white paper discusses how the site was configured and how
they made use of accelerators and load-balancing techniques
and the importance of cache control.
Network Computing Germany magazine issue 8th December 1999
examined the performance of Apache against Netscape and IIS
in a "Real World Labs" article. The article is not yet
available online.
This week in the news is Covalent,
who received funding to expand their recently announced
Apache support service, and Linuxcare who
are expanding their existing support operation to cover
Apache.
Commercial support for Apache has been available to
organisations for almost as long as Apache has been
developed. In 1996, UK
Web in England had the first telephone and email support
service for Apache. They were joined for a brief time by Cygnus Solutions who
dropped their Apache support program shortly after launch. UK
Web also switched, instead supporting a commercial Apache
variant from C2Net. Over the last few years a number of
other companies have offered support and other professional
services for Apache.
Apache is also distributed with a number of operating
systems. RedHat supports
Apache as part of their Linux distribution, IBM support
their
verson of Apache and recently confirmed rumours show that
Sun will
be distributing Apache with Solaris 8.
The press have confused the funding for Covalent with Apache
itself and this confusion is also evident in readers
comments on Slashdot. The Apache Software Foundation is a
not-for-profit organisation with no plans for commercial
services or to go public.