Apache 1.3.20 Released The Apache Software Foundation and The Apache Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.20 of the Apache HTTP server. This version of Apache is principally a security fix release addressing a problem which could lead to a directory listing being displayed in place of an error message. Also, it fixes some potential configuration quirks present in the 1.3.19 release. A summary of the new features is given at the end of this document. We consider Apache 1.3.20 to be the best version of Apache available and we strongly recommend that users of older versions, especially of the 1.1.x and 1.2.x family, upgrade as soon as possible. No further releases will be made in the 1.2.x family. Apache 1.3.20 is available for download from http://httpd.apache.org/dist/httpd/ Please see the CHANGES_1.3 file in the same directory for a full list of changes. Binary distributions are available from http://httpd.apache.org/dist/httpd/binaries/ The source and binary distributions are also available via any of the mirrors listed at http://www.apache.org/mirrors/ Apache 1.3.20 for Win32 and OS2 corrects a serious denial of service vulnerability, and users are strongly discouraged from using any previous versions on those platforms. As of Apache 1.3.17, Win32 binary distributions are now based on the Microsoft Installer (.MSI) technology. This change occured in order to resolve the many problems WinME and Win2K users experienced with the older InstallShield-based installer .exe file. While development continues to make this new installation method more robust, questions should be directed at the news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows newsgroup. As of Apache 1.3.12 binary distributions contain all standard Apache modules as shared objects (if supported by the platform) and include full source code. Installation is easily done by executing the included install script. See the README.bindist and INSTALL.bindist files for a complete explanation. Please note that the binary distributions are only provided for your convenience and current distributions for specific platforms are not always available. For an overview of new features introduced after 1.2 please see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/new_features_1_3.html In general, Apache 1.3 offers several substantial improvements over version 1.2, including better performance, reliability and a wider range of supported platforms, including Windows 95/98 and NT (which fall under the "Win32" label), OS2, Netware, and TPE threaded platforms. Apache is the most popular web server in the known universe; over half of the servers on the Internet are running Apache or one of its variants. IMPORTANT NOTE FOR WIN32 USERS: Over the years, many users have come to trust Apache as a secure and stable server. It must be realized that the current Win32 code has not yet reached the levels of the Unix version, but is of acceptable quality. Any Win32 stability or security problems do not impact, in any way, Apache on other platforms. Apache 1.3.20 Major changes The primary security fix is: * A carefully constructed URI could cause the server to segfault on Win32 and OS2, denying access to users until the error was cleared. This is resolved on both platforms, no server data vulnerability was identified for this denial of service exploit. The general bug fixes: * Eliminate a potential segfault if an invalid floating point value is passed to the ap_snprintf() function, on platforms supporting isnan() and isinf(). * Fix a possible segfault at startup in the detection of a default ServerName or IP string when no ServerName was specified. * Fixed mod_proxy to retain empty headers, as allowed by RFC2068. * Properly resolve the location of ndbm on Linux and some glibc2 builds, where ndbm.h is in the nonstandard db1/ subdir. Win32 bug fixes: * Win32 now properly handles the SSI exec cmd tag. Due to argument parsing issues with spaces and slashes, cmd is interpreted as an executable file, not a long command line string. * Resolved a threading problem with WinNT/2K services, allowing modules such as mod_jserv and mod_perl to shut down cleanly. * Resolved stdin and stdout pipes for the parent Win32 service process, solving bugs such as "dup2(stdin) failed" when trying to use piped logs. Netware specific bug fixes: * Netware initial screen allows the -s parameter to switch to the system console screen, warning messages during startup are now displayed. * Netware added '.' and '..' to the directory listing so mod_autoindex will now display the parent directory. * NetWare now shuts down cleanly in error conditions, such as a failure while reading the httpd.conf file. The main new features include: * Enhanced rotatelogs to allow a UTC offset to be specified, and the format logfile names with human-readable date/time stamps. * Added the NOESCAPE (NS) flag to RewriteRule, to disable *all* normal URI escaping. Note incautious use can give unexpected results or introduce security risks. * Added the '\' character to RewriteRule to allow escaping of special characters. Allows embedding of both the '$' and '%' characters in the results, so 'foo\$1' translates to 'foo$1' rather than 'foo\'. * Added the -V flag to suexec, to display the compile-time settings with which it was built. (Only valid for root or the HTTPD_USER username.) * Introduced EBCDIC conversion configuration options, controlling the conversion based on MIME type or file suffix. * Support for the Cygwin 1.x platform (a POSIX emulation layer for Win32 systems, see http://www.cygwin.com). Note this is an entirely different implementation than the native calls in the win32 port. * Support for building modules with apxs under Win32. cygwin builders must use a cygwin build of perl to avoid MSVC handling.