Apache 1.3.9 Released

[ From the Apache.org
announcement: ]

The Apache Group is pleased to announce the release of version
1.3.9 of the Apache HTTP server.

This new Apache version incorporates over 130 significant
improvements to the server. Apart from portability and security
fixes, documentation enhancements, performance improvements, and
assorted other minor features or fixes notable changes are:

• A new experimental digest authentication module, compatible
  with the latest digest-auth standards, has been added to the base
  package.
• The expat XML parser has been added to allow
  modules to deal with XML if necessary.
• The processing on Windows of basic authentication passwords in
  mod_auth password files has been fixed. In addition,
  the SHA1 encoding algorithm has been added to those available and
  known to htpasswd, and passwords on Windows may be
  longer than the inadvertent 1.3.6 limit of 8 characters.
• Several problems with mod_access and CIDR
  addresses have been fixed.
• Support has been added or enhanced for Tandem, TPF, and the
  Macintosh OS X platforms.
• Some processing of Vary response header fields has
  been corrected.
• Restarts with apache -k on Windows are now
  honoured immediately, instead of after the system’s listen queue is
  drained.
• Expect: 100-continue processing has been
  corrected.
• Script errors on Windows are now copied to the server’s error
  log if the scripts fail; this is closer to the Unix behaviour.
• Mass-vhosting has been added (see the documentation for module
  mod_vhost_alias).
• The server no longer automatically checks for the existence of
  a valid DocumentRoot for all virtual hosts; this was
  imposing a significant startup penalty on systems with numerous
  vhosts. The default behaviour has changed to not
  performing this check, but it can be re-enabled by specifying the
  -t command line option for full configuration
  testing.
• apache -S on Windows now exits properly after
  completing the configuration testing.
• SetEnvIf* directives can now test the values of
  environment variables as well as request attributes. In addition,
  the request protocol and level (e.g.,
  “HTTP/1.1“) can now be tested.
• ReadmeName and HeaderName files (mod_autoindex)
  are now server-parsable and accessible with MultiViews.
• AddDescription directives now behave as documented
  with regard to partial filename matches.
• The name of the cookie used by mod_usertrack is
  now customisable.

A complete listing with detailed descriptions is provided in the
src/CHANGES file.

We consider Apache 1.3.9 to be the best version of Apache
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 1.3.9 is available for download from

Please see the CHANGES_1.3 file in
the same directory for a full list of changes.

Binary distributions are available from

As of Apache 1.3.9 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.

The source and binary distributions are also available via any
of the mirrors listed at

For an overview of new features in 1.3 please see

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 95/98 and NT
(which fall under the “Win32” label).

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 WIN32 USERS: Over the
years, many users have come to trust Apache as a secure and stable
server. It must be realized that the current Win32 code has not yet
reached these levels and should still be considered to be of beta
quality. Any Win32 stability or security problems do not impact, in
any way, Apache on other platforms. With the continued donation of
time and resources by individuals and companies, we hope that the
Win32 version of Apache will grow stronger through the 1.3.x
release cycle.