Apache Week issue 334

                                APACHE WEEK

The essential weekly guide for users of the world's most popular Web server.
                       Issue 334: 5th September 2003

                                 In this issue

     * Under development
     * In the news
     * Featured articles

                               Under development

     After  fixes  for the three problematic mod_include bugs [1]covered
     previously  were  checked  in,  another  emerged  and  prompted the
     ever-prolific André Malo to rewrite most of the code in the module.
     The  edge cases in the filtering logic have been eliminated and the
     cleaner code will hopefully prove to easier to maintain.

     Releases are pending from both the stable 2.0 tree and the unstable
     2.1  tree;  the  2.0.48 release will include useful improvements to
     mod_deflate  along  with  the  usual  horde of bug fixes. The first
     release  from the 2.1 tree will pave the way towards a stable "2.2"
     release;  this  prompted  discussion of some design issues with the
     filter interface which are yet to be settled.

     The  "zombie  CGI  process"  bug  introduced  in the 1.3.28 release
     ([2]BZ#21737)  was  fixed  once,  then  fixed  again,  after it was
     discovered  the original check-in did not solve the problem on some
     platforms;  the  [3]final  patch  can  be  retrieved  from  the CVS
     repository.

                                  In the news

>From the editors

     We've  had  a  few  emails  from people who have wondered why we've
     missed out so many issues of Apache Week this year. We decided some
     time  ago  that rather than fill up your inboxes with lower quality
     padding,  we'd  sometimes  miss out issues if there is nothing much
     exciting  to  report about. We've also all been out on holidays and
     we're  a little light on staff as long-time Apache Week author, Min
     Min  Tsan,  has  left  Red  Hat to pursue other opportunities. Many
     thanks Min Min for your two years of Featured Articles and reviews.

Apache Newsletter Launched

     The first issue of the official [4]Apache Newsletter was launched a
     couple  of  weeks  ago. The monthly newsletter aims to cover all of
     the   Apache  Software  Foundation  projects  and  is  packed  with
     development news as well as details of all the new releases.

ApacheCon 2003

     Preparations  are  now  well  underway for ApacheCon 2003, with the
     organisers  taking a gamble and betting that people will want to go
     back to same venue in Las Vegas as ApacheCon 2002.

     The  conference  schedule isn't yet online but a number of bloggers
     have already worked out a way to subvert the Apache IRC channel bot
     to  work  out  that  their  sessions  were  accepted. These include
     [5]"Developing    Web    Applications    with    CGI::Application",
     [6]"Scheduled  Advanced  Apache  Administration with Perl", [7]"PHP
     Attacks and Defense", and [8]"Apache Security Secrets Revealed"

     Apache  Week  will be there as always to report on the festivities,
     but it is nothing like being there in person and being able to talk
     to  the  members that actually write the software. We'd suggest you
     mark   off   November  16th  to  the  19th  in  your  calendars  in
     anticipation of registration opening.

Apache powers two-thirds of all servers

     In  this  month's  [9]web  server  survey from [10]Netcraft, Apache
     leaps  up to take over 67% market share, the first time it has been
     over the two-thirds mark.

     Meanwhile  Information  Week report that [11]"Microsoft Takes Linux
     For  A  Test  Drive",  and  installs  Apache  in  their  Enterprise
     Engineering  Centre. No doubt in order to learn how to compete with
     the market leader.

An Apache J2EE Implementation

     Also last month, the Apache Software Foundation announced that they
     would start incubation of a new project with the aims to develop an
     open   source,   Apache-licensed,   implementation   of   the  J2EE
     specification.  More  details are available from the [12]article at
     internetnews.com or from the [13]ASF project page.

                               Featured articles

     In  this  section we highlight some of the articles on the web that
     are of interest to Apache users.

     TechRepublic  look  at  what  it  takes to [14]"Protect your Apache
     server  from DoS attacks". The article gives a good introduction to
     what  the  different  types of Denial of Service attack are and how
     they  impact  on users running Apache servers, and ends with a look
     at the third party mod_dosevasive module.

     In  [15]"mod_rewrite:  No  More  Endless Loops!", Andrea Rossignoli
     takes   a  look  at  the  recent  addition  to  the  RewriteOptions
     directive,  MaxRedirects.  Her  tutorial shows how to configure and
     use  the  directive  and  how  it can protect against mistakes when
     creating mod_rewrite rules.

     Sun have produced a case study, [16]"Porting Apache Web Server from
     Solaris  OS,  SPARC Platform Edition to x86 Platform Edition" which
     gives  a step by step guide to download, compile, install, and run,
     Apache 2 on Solaris.
       ______________________________________________________________

     This issue brought to you by: Mark J Cox, Joe Orton
     Comments or criticisms? Please email us at
     [17][email protected].

     [18]Apache Week is Copyright 2003 [19]Red Hat, Inc.

References

   1. http://www.apacheweek.com/issues/03-07-25#dev
   2. http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=21737
   3. http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/apache-1.3/src/main/alloc.c.diff?r1=1.147&r2=1.146
   4. http://www.apache.org/newsletter/
   5. http://use.perl.org/~Purdy/journal/14492
   6. http://use.perl.org/~cwest/journal/14480
   7. http://use.perl.org/~shiflett/journal/14478
   8. http://www.advogato.org/person/mjcox/diary.html?start=97
   9. http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/09/01/september_2003_web_server_survey.html
  10. http://www.netcraft.com/
  11. http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=12803689
  12. http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2246281
  13. http://incubator.apache.org/projects/geronimo.html
  14. http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6329-5058830.html
  15. http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1207
  16. http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/casestudy_port_x86.html
  17. mailto:[email protected]
  18. http://www.apacheweek.com/
  19. http://www.redhat.com/

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