[NBLUG/talk] [Fwd: Apache HTTP Server 1.3.28 Released]

ME dugan at passwall.com
Fri Jul 18 07:22:00 PDT 2003


Does not seem to be as urgent as previous updates, but features/bug
fixes/security fixes may be of interest to you.
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Apache HTTP Server 1.3.28 Released
From:    "Jim Jagielski" <jim at apache.org>
Date:    Fri, July 18, 2003 6:29
To:      announce at apache.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


                    Apache HTTP Server 1.3.28 Released

    The Apache Software Foundation and The Apache Server Project are
pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.28 of the Apache HTTP
Server ("Apache").  This Announcement notes the significant changes in
1.3.28 as compared to 1.3.27. The Announcement is also available in
German from http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/Announcement.txt.de.

    This version of Apache is principally a bug and security fix release.
A partial summary of the bug fixes is given at the end of this
document.
    A full listing of changes can be found in the CHANGES file.  Of
particular note is that 1.3.28 addresses and fixes 3 potential
security issues:

     o CAN-2003-0460 (cve.mitre.org): Fix the rotatelogs support program
on
       Win32 and OS/2 to ignore special control characters received over
the
       pipe.  Previously such characters could cause it to quit logging
and
       exit.  We would like to thank the Hitachi Incident Response team
for
       their responsible disclosure of this issue.

     o VU#379828 : The server could crash when going into an infinite
loop
       due to too many subsequent internal redirects and nested
subrequests.

     o Eliminated leaks of several file descriptors to child processes,
such
       as CGI scripts.

    We consider Apache 1.3.28 to be the best version of Apache 1.3
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 1.3.28 is available for download from

        http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
                 - or -
        http://www.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://www.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/

    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. Win32
binary distributions are based on the Microsoft Installer (.MSI)
technology.  While development continues to make this installation
method
    more robust, questions should be directed to the
    news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows newsgroup.

    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 NT and 2000 (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 APACHE USERS:   Apache 1.3 was designed for Unix
OS
    variants.  While  the ports to non-Unix platforms (such as Win32,
Netware
    or OS2) are of an acceptable quality, Apache 1.3 is not optimized for
these platforms.  Security, stability, or performance issues on these
non-Unix ports do not generally apply to the Unix version, due to
software's Unix origin.

    Apache 2.0 has been structured for multiple operating systems from
its
    inception, by introducing the Apache Portability Library and MPM
modules.
    Users on non-Unix platforms are strongly encouraged to move up to
Apache 2.0 for better performance, stability and security on their
platforms.

                      Apache 1.3.28 Major changes

   Security vulnerabilities

      * CAN-2003-0460 (cve.mitre.org): Fix the rotatelogs support
program on
        Win32 and OS/2 to ignore special control characters received
over the
        pipe.  Previously such characters could cause it to quit logging
and
        exit.  We would like to thank the Hitachi Incident Response team
for
        their responsible disclosure of this issue.

      * VU#379828 : The server could crash when going into an infinite
loop
        due to too many subsequent internal redirects and nested
subrequests.

      * Eliminated leaks of several file descriptors to child processes,
such
        as CGI scripts.

   New features

    The main new features in 1.3.28 (compared to 1.3.27) are:

      * Added new ap_register_cleanup_ex() API function which allows
        for a "magic" cleanup function to be run at register time
        rather than at cleanup time.

      * Improvements to mod_usertrack that allows for a regular (verbose)
        as well as "compact" version of the tracking cookie (the new
'CookieFormat' directive), and the ability to prepend a string to
the cookie via the 'CookiePrefix' directive.

    New features that relate to specific platforms:

      * Introduce Win32 .pdb diagnostic symbols into the Apache 1.3 build
        (as created in Apache 2.0.45 and later.)  which makes debugging
and
        analysis of crash dumps and Dr. Watson logs trivial.

      * AIX: Change the default accept mutex mechanism from pthread back
to
        fcntl.

   Bugs fixed

    The following noteworthy bugs were found in Apache 1.3.27 (or
earlier)
    and have been fixed in Apache 1.3.28:

      * Make sure the accept mutex is released before calling child exit
        hooks and cleanups.

      * Fix mod_rewrite's handling of absolute URIs.  The escaping
routines
        now work scheme dependent and the query string will only be
appended if supported by the particular scheme.

      * Prevent obscenely large values of precision in ap_vformatter
        from clobbering a buffer.

      * Update timeout algorithm in free_proc_chain. If a subprocess
        did not exit immediately, the thread would sleep for 3 seconds
before checking the subprocess exit status again. In a very common
case when the subprocess was an HTTP server CGI script, the CGI
script actually exited a fraction of a second into the 3 second
sleep, which effectively limited the server to serving one CGI
request every 3 seconds across a persistent connection.


--
=======================================================================
  Jim Jagielski   [|]   jim at jaguNET.com   [|]   http://www.jaguNET.com/
     "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order
            will lose both and deserve neither" - T.Jefferson


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