In this issue

Apache Site: www.apache.org
Release: 1.3.6 (Released 25^th March 1999) (local download sites)
Beta: None

Apache 1.3.6 is the current stable release. Users of Apache 1.3.4 and earlier on Unix systems should upgrade to this version. Read the Guide to 1.3.6 for information about changes between 1.3.4 and 1.3.6 and between 1.2 and 1.3.6.

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.

These bugs have been found in 1.3.6 and will be fixed in the next release.

• If ServerSignature is used in a virtual host or per-directory (e.g. .htaccess) context it does not override the setting given in the main server configuration. PR#4248.

Patches for bugs in Apache 1.3.6 will be made available in the apply_to_1.3.6 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 mod_usertrack module can be used to set a cookie. The name of this cookie is currently fixed as Apache. From the next release, the cookie name can be set with the CookieName directive. This may be useful, for example, when Apache is acting as a proxy and where the origin server is itself setting an Apache user tracking cookie. See also PR#2921 and PR#4303.

The HTTP/1.1 specification defines a response header called Vary which servers send back in certain circumstances. However it seems that when MSIE 4 receives a response containing this header it reports that the file could not be found. From the next release it will be possible to turn off the Vary response header by setting the force-no-vary environment variable. To turn off the Vary header just for MSIE, the directive

  BrowserMatch "MSIE\.4" force-no-vary

could be used. The problem is documented on the Apache known client bugs page and in PR#4118.