NCSA httpd 1.2 now available

robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
Errors-To: listmaster@www0.cern.ch
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 1994 09:43:38 --100
Message-id: <9404110738.AA13008@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Errors-To: listmaster@www0.cern.ch
Reply-To: robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu
Originator: www-talk@info.cern.ch
Sender: www-talk@www0.cern.ch
Precedence: bulk
From: robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: NCSA httpd 1.2 now available
X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
Content-Length: 4598


NCSA httpd 1.2 is now available via anonymous FTP from
ftp://ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Web/ncsa_httpd/current. Note that there is no
longer a binary distributed for the DECstation MIPS machines running
Ultrix as our DECstation 5000 died and it hasn't been fixed as of yet.

NCSA httpd is an HTTP/1.0 compatible server for hypermedia documents.
It runs on a plethora of UNIX systems. NCSA httpd is also compatible
with the Common Gateway Interface which allows interactive document
generation.

All of the documentation for NCSA httpd is online hypertext. See 
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/. If you cannot use a networked WWW browser to 
read it, retrieve the file /Web/ncsa_httpd/current/httpd_docs.tar.Z from
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu and use your WWW browser in local only mode to get things
started.

Note that the new features introduced with this release required some
internal restructuring of the code. This may cause some bugs. If you
are pleased with your current setup and do not need the new features
you may consider waiting before upgrading in order to make sure that
any problems (we expect none, but who ever does?) are worked out prior
to your upgrade.

By popular demand I have written a number of tutorials about various
aspects of NCSA httpd configuration. See
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/tutorials/ for an index.

Thanks all
--Rob and Eric

httpd@ncsa.uiuc.edu

----

This code is in the public domain. Specifically, we give to the public
domain all rights for future licensing of the source code, all resale
rights, and all publishing rights.

We ask, but do not require, that the following message be included in
all derived works:

Portions developed at the National Center for Supercomputing
Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS GIVES NO WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED,
FOR THE SOFTWARE AND/OR DOCUMENTATION PROVIDED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT
LIMITATION, WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY AND WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

----

All of the following information is available at
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/Upgrade.html in hypertext form. You
should probably read that instead of this primitive plaintext.

New features

    * The CGI interface is now revised to version 1.1.

    * A new logfile format was agreed upon which should simplify the
      lives of the authors of logfile analyzers if commonly adopted.

    * CGI scripts are now allowed anywhere.

    * The server side includes interface has been completely
      rewritten. It is NOT compatible with your old INC SRV documents
      but a filter is provided to transform your old documents into
      the new format.

    * There is a new access control option to disable symbolic links
      only if the owner of the pointer is not the same as the
      owner of that which is pointed to. This means your users can
      have symbolic links to things they own, but not to dangerous
      things like /etc.

    * A new access control method called mutual-failure has been
      added. This method is a bit unorthodox, but allows
      you to allow hosts from one domain while excluding certain hosts
      (such as public access machines) from that domain.

    * Wildcard expressions are now allowed in various areas of server
      configuration, to allow patterns to be specified. This is most
      useful in the Directory directive.

    * Directory indexing has been revamped. It looks much different,
      and I've written a short tutorial on how to set it up.

    * Access Control Files now allow the indexing directives as well
      as the DefaultType directive.

    * require user now allows quotes for PGP usernames with spaces.

    * Server now explicitly kills CGI scripts when the client aborts
      or upon timeout

    * Server now verifies the DNS hostname it gets from the IP number
      to prevent PTR spoofs.

    * Support for 304 and If-modified-since.

    * Support for CGI PUT and DELETE scripts. This will become
      important later for group annotation features.

Bug fixes

All of the known bugs in 1.1 have now been fixed. Now it's time to
find the ones I introduce with 1.2.

    * Fixed problem running scripts in ServerMode inetd under IRIX.

    * Fixed bad port problem under OSF/1.

    * Inserted missing return statement for the IdentityCheck directive.

    * Fixed problem whereby errors would stop being logged after a restart.

    * Fixed 256 character limitation on CGI URLs.

    * Access control fix from 1.1 integrated but moved in order to
      allow certain CGI scripts to continue functioning.