New features with this release, as extensions of the Apache functionality. Because the core code has changed so significantly, there are certain liberties that earlier versions of Apache (and the NCSA daemon) took that recent Apache versions are pickier about - please check the compatibility notes if you have any problems.
If you're upgrading from Apache 1.2, you may wish to read the upgrade notes.
Enhancements: Core | Performance | Configuration | Modules | API | Misc
Configuration
have been replaced with
"AddModule" with a slightly different syntax. For module
authors there are some changes designed to make it easier for
users to add their module.ProxyReceiveBufferSize
directive gives mod_proxy
's outgoing connections
larger network buffers, for increased throughput.writev
(where
available) to issue multiple writes with a single system
call. They also avoid copying memory into buffers as much as
possible. The result is less CPU time spent on transferring
large files.mmap
, which
means bytes are only copied from the disk buffer to the
network buffer directly by the kernel. The program never
copies bytes around, which reduces CPU time. (Only where
available/tested.)mod_log_config
can
be compile-time configured to buffer writes.strncpy()
with
ap_cpystrn()
, a routine which doesn't have to
zero-fill the entire result. This has dramatic effects on
mod_include
speed.See the new performance documentation for more information.
configure
script and a corresponding top-level
Makefile.tmpl
file. The goal is to provide a GNU
Autoconf-style frontend which is capable to both drive the
old src/Configure
stuff in batch and
additionally installs the package with a GNU-conforming
directory layout. Any options from the old configuration
scheme are available plus a lot of new options for flexibly
customizing Apache.README.configure
and INSTALL
for
more information.apxs
was created which provides
off-source building, installing and activating of those
DSO-based modules. It completely hides the platform-dependent
DSO-build commands from the user and provides an easy way to
build modules outside the Apache source tree. To achieve this
APACI installs the Apache C header files together with the
apxs
tool./usr/local/apache/
/usr/local/etc/httpd/
to /usr/local/apache/
. This change covers only
the default setting (and the documentation); it is of course
possible to override it using the -d
ServerRoot and -f httpd.conf switches
when starting apache.NameVirtualHost
directive is used to list IP address:port pairs on which
HTTP/1.1-style virtual hosting occurs. This is vhosting based
on the Host:
header from the client. Previously
this address was implicitly the same as the "main address" of
the machine, and this caused no end of problems for users,
and was not powerful enough. Please see the Apache Virtual Host documentation for
further details on configuration.Include
directiveInclude
directive includes other config files immediately at that
point in parsing.-S
command
line option it will dump out information regarding how it
parsed the VirtualHost
sections. This is useful
for folks trying to debug their virtual host
configuration.SetEnvIf
and SetEnvIfNoCase
.
These allow you to set environment variables for server and
CGI use based upon attributes of the request.mod_mime_magic
has been added.
It uses "magic numbers" and other hints from a file's
contents to figure out what the contents are. It then uses
this information to set the file's media type, if it cannot
be determined by the file's extension.UNIQUE_ID
.ProxyVia
directive allows switching "Via:" support off or on, or
suppressing outgoing "Via:" header lines altogether for
privacy reasons.NoProxy
and ProxyDomain
directives added to proxy, useful for intranets.ProxyPassReverse
directive. It lets Apache adjust the URL in the
Location header on HTTP redirect responses.mod_include
string
comparisonsmod_dir
module has been split in two, with mod_dir handling directory
index files, and mod_autoindex creating
directory listings. Thus allowing folks to remove the
indexing function from critical servers.SuppressColumnSorting
IndexOptions
keyword.SuppressHTMLPreamble
can be used if your README.html file includes its own
HTML header.IndexOptions
directive now allows the use of incremental prefixes (+/-
to add/remove the respective keyword feature, as was
already possible for the Options directive) to
its keyword arguments. Multiple IndexOptions directives
applying to the same directory will now be merged.IconHeight
and
IconWidth
let you set height
and width attributes to the <IMG>
tag
in directory listings.NameWidth
keyword to the IndexOptions
directive lets you set the number of columns for "fancy"
directory listings. If set to an '*' asterisk, the
name width will be adjusted automatically.Alias
and
Redirect
AliasMatch
,
ScriptAliasMatch
,
and RedirectMatch
directives allow for the use of regular expression matching.
Additionally, new <DirectoryMatch>
,
<LocationMatch>
,
and <FilesMatch>
sections provide a new syntax for regular expression
sectioning.AddModuleInfo
directive added to mod_infoTransferLog
disables
loggingTransferLog
directive is given then no log is written. This supports
co-existence with other logging modules.LogFormat
directive has been enhanced to allow you to give nicknames to
specific logging formats. You can then use these nicknames in
other LogFormat
and CustomLog
directives, rather than having to spell out the complete log
format string each time.RewriteMap
directiveRewriteMap
directive
of mod_rewrite. They provide two new features: First, you now
can randomly choose a sub-value from a value which was
looked-up in a rewriting map (which is useful when choosing
between backend servers in a Reverse Proxy situation).
Second, you now can translate URL parts to fixed (upper or
lower) case (which is useful when doing mass virtual hosting
by the help of mod_rewrite).For all those module writers and code hackers:
child_init
child_exit
child_init
and child_exit
functions
are passed a pool whose lifetime is the same as the lifetime
of the child (modulo completely fatal events in which Apache
has no hope of recovering). In contrast, the module
init
function is passed a pool whose lifetime
ends when the parent exits or restarts.child_terminate
register_other_child
http_main.h
. This is used in the parent
to register a child for monitoring. The parent will report
status to a supplied callback function. This allows modules
to create their own children which are monitored along with
the httpd children.piped_log
http_log.h
. This API provides the common
code for implementing piped logs. In particular it implements
a reliable piped log on architectures supporting it
(i.e., Unix at the moment).set_last_modified
split into
threeset_last_modified
performed
multiple jobs including the setting of the
Last-Modified
header, the ETag
header, and processing conditional requests (such as IMS).
These functions have been split into three functions:
set_last_modified
, set_etag
, and
meets_conditions
. The field mtime
has been added to request_rec
to facilitate
meets_conditions
.ap_log_error
ap_log_error
. This is still a work in
progress.set_file_slot
for config
parsingset_file_slot
routine provides a
standard routine that prepends ServerRoot to non-absolute
paths.post_read_request
module
APIpsocket
, and
popendir
psocket
and pclosesocket
functions allow for race-condition free socket creation with
resource tracking. Similarly popendir
and
pclosedir
protect directory reading.is_initial_req
kill_only_once
ap_spawn_child
functions which
prevents Apache from aggressively trying to kill off the
child.alloc debugging code
ALLOC_DEBUG
provides a rudimentary
memory debugger which can be used on live servers with low
impact -- it sets all allocated and freed memory bytes to
0xa5. Defining ALLOC_USE_MALLOC
will cause the
alloc code to use malloc()
and
free()
for each object. This is far more
expensive and should only be used for testing with tools such
as Electric Fence and Purify. See main/alloc.c
for more details.ap_cpystrn
strncpy
"lookalike", with slightly
different semantics is much faster than strncpy
because it doesn't have to zero-fill the entire buffer.table_addn
, table_setn
,
table_mergen
pstrdup
on their arguments. This provides for
big speedups. There is also some debugging support to ensure
code uses them properly. See src/CHANGES
for
more information.construct_url
server_rec *
to taking a request_rec
*
.get_server_name
,
get_server_port
ap_bspawn_child
and
ap_call_exec
child_info *
to spawn
function (as passed to ap_bspawn_child
) and to
ap_call_exec
to allow children to work correctly
on Win32. We also cleaned up the nomenclature a bit,
replacing spawn_child_err
with simply
ap_spawn_child
and
spawn_child_err_buff
with simply
ap_bspawn_child
.ap_add_version_component()
Server:
header line. Previous 1.3beta versions
had used a SERVER_SUBVERSION
compile-time
#define
to perform this function. Whether the
tokens are actually displayed is controlled by the new
ServerTokens
directive.AccessFileName
EnhancementAccessFileName
directive can now take
more than one filename. This lets sites serving pages from
network file systems and more than one Apache web server,
configure access based on the server through which shared
pages are being served.HostNameLookups
now defaults to
"Off"HostNameLookups
directive now defaults to "Off". This means that, unless
explicitly turned on, the server will not resolve IP
addresses into names. This was done to spare the Internet
from unnecessary DNS traffic.HostnameLookups
directive now supports double-reverse DNS. (Known as
PARANOID in the terminology of tcp_wrappers.) An IP
address passes a double-reverse DNS test if the forward map
of the reverse map includes the original IP. Regardless of
the HostnameLookups setting, mod_access access lists using
DNS names require all names to pass a
double-reverse DNS test. (Prior versions of Apache required a
compile-time switch to enable double-reverse DNS.)timefmt
string used by mod_include
has
been modified to display the year using four digits rather
than the two-digit format used previously. The mod_autoindex
module has also been modified to display years using four
digits in FancyIndexed directory listings.htdigest
), and these other
applications would fail to build because the routines were
built only into the server. These routines are now being
migrated to a separate subdirectory and library so they can
be used by other applications than just the server. See the
src/ap/
subdirectory.ServerSignature
directiveUseCanonicalName
directiveUseCanonicalName
off
Apache will use the hostname and port supplied by
the client, if available.SERVER_VERSION
definition
abstracted, and server build date added#define
d value
for SERVER_VERSION
. In order to keep this value
consistent when modules and the core server are compiled at
different times, this information is now available through
the core API routine ap_get_server_version()
.
The use of the SERVER_VERSION
symbol is
deprecated. Also, ap_get_server_built()
returns
a string representing the time the core server was
linked.ServerTokens
, allows the
Webmaster to change the value of the Server
response header field which is sent back to clients. The
ServerTokens
directive controls whether the
server will include a non-specific note in the server
identity about the type of operating system on which the
server is running as well as included module information. As
of Apache 1.3, this additional information is included by
default.{SHA1}
are taken as Base64 encoded SHA1
passwords. More information and some utilities to convert
Netscape ldap/ldif entries can be found in support/SHA1.