In this issue

There's only a week left to qualify for the early-bird registration fee of US$795 for the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2000. After June 19th it'll cost the slightly higher price of US$895.

Monterey, California plays host to the conference between July 17th and 20th, and brings together the leaders of 10 critical open source technologies - including Apache - to give you an inside look at how to configure, optimise, code, and manage them.

Apache Week will be there, and notable Apache-bods on the speakers list include Ryan Bloom, Ken Coar, and Rasmus Lerdorf. If the gravitational pull of those names aren't enough, there's a feast of activities including the Double Feature Movie night (with free popcorn) and the Open-Source Caribbean Jam.

Apache Site: www.apache.org/httpd
Release: 1.3.12 (Released 25^th February 2000) (local download sites)
Beta: None
Alpha: 2.0a4 (Released 7^th June 2000) (local download sites)

Apache 1.3.12 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.3.11 and earlier on Unix and Windows systems should upgrade to this version. Read the Guide to 1.3.12, the Guide to 1.3.11 for information about changes between 1.3.9 and 1.3.11 and 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 security hole on NT allows a user to view the listing of a directory instead of the default HTML page by sending a carefully constructed request.
• The default ServerName on Windows platforms caused confusion. PR#5509, PR#5783, PR#5953, PR#5903, PR#5983, PR#5259, PR#5515, PR#5858
• The expiry module, mod_expires would not correctly merge its Cache-Control header. PR#5769
• The Windows and Unix default httpd.conf files have drifted out of sync with each other
• The proxy module, mod_proxy had a garbage collection problem. PR#1891, PR#3278, PR#4139, PR#5997
• The proxy module, mod_proxy can not be dynamically loaded on Windows 95.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.3.12 will be made available in the apply_to_1.3.12 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.

The majority of development work is now being focused on Apache 2.0, with the hopes of an updated alpha-test version towards the end of March 2000.

A number of additions and fixes have been made to Apache 1.3.12 with a view to releasing Apache 1.3.13 sometime in July. The features added over the last few weeks include:

• A directory layout for Solaris 8 has been added to the configuration system
• The media types have been added to the default mime.types file including filename extensions for the WAP types.
• An addition to the htpasswd tool allows passwords to be generated and output to standard output rather than a password file allowing the tool to be used to generate passwords for inclusion into other types of databases.
• The SetEnvIf and BrowserMatch range of directives are now able to be used in .htaccess files.
• A comprehensive review of the Windows documentation has been committed which should reduce the number of support inquiries and problem reports.
• Windows 95 and 98 can now benefit from an experimental emulation of the NT services, including install and uninstall options. The Apache server therefore can start when the OS loads and will not stop if the current user logs off. A handler for Win32 Ctrl+C, Ctrl+Break, Close, Logoff, Shutdown has been added
• The Windows project files have been converted to work with Microsoft Visual C 6.0. Scripts have been provided to allow developers who only have access to MSVC 5.0 to use the new files as they are not backward compatible.
• The default serialised accept has been changed for AIX 4.3 to provide a substantial performance improvement on multiple CPU machines serving large numbers of concurrent clients.

A series of alpha releases of Apache 2.0 are being made available from the Apache site. This fourth alpha has a number of additions and fixes since the third alpha released at the start of May but should still not be considered even beta-quality code. The release of the third alpha was covered in Apache Today and slashdot.

In the first of a weekly series of columns in Apache Today, Rich Bowen explains how Apache can be configured to allow to permit CGI and ultimately serve dynamic content. " Apache Guide: Dynamic Content with CGI" is not the most in-depth article, but it goes some way to getting you started and understanding the basics.

Everyone knows how powerful open-source solutions can be, and how well they fair in comparison with their commercial cousins. Two sites currently have articles about setting up an internet database - such as Apache-based imdb.com - using free technologies, including Apache. These show how Apache is perfectly viable to power high-profile e-commerce sites.

• "Setting Up an Internet Database: Preparations" on geeks404.com
• "The soothing seemless setup of Apache, SSL, MySQL, and PHP" from the Developer Shed.

In addition, and once you've got your new site online, Dotcomma have an article exploring the performance of PHP and MySQL