Apache HTTP Server 1.3.31 Released The Apache Software Foundation and The Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the release of version 1.3.31 of the Apache HTTP Server ("Apache"). This Announcement notes the significant changes in 1.3.31 as compared to 1.3.29 (1.3.30 was not released). The Announcement is also available in German, Spanish and Japanese from: http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/Announcement.html.de http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/Announcement.html.es http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/Announcement.html.ja This version of Apache is principally a bug and security fix release. A partial summary of the bug fixes is given at the end of this document. A full listing of changes can be found in the CHANGES file. Of particular note is that 1.3.31 addresses and fixes 4 potential security issues: o CAN-2003-0987 (cve.mitre.org) In mod_digest, verify whether the nonce returned in the client response is one we issued ourselves. This problem does not affect mod_auth_digest. o CAN-2003-0020 (cve.mitre.org) Escape arbitrary data before writing into the errorlog. o CAN-2004-0174 (cve.mitre.org) Fix starvation issue on listening sockets where a short-lived connection on a rarely-accessed listening socket will cause a child to hold the accept mutex and block out new connections until another connection arrives on that rarely-accessed listening socket. This only affects some platforms, such as Solaris, AIX and IRIX. Linux is unaffected. o CAN-2003-0993 (cve.mitre.org) Fix parsing of Allow/Deny rules using IP addresses without a netmask; issue is only known to affect big-endian 64-bit platforms We consider Apache 1.3.31 to be the best version of Apache 1.3 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 1.3.31 is available for download from: http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi This service utilizes the network of mirrors listed at: http://www.apache.org/mirrors/ Please consult the CHANGES_1.3 file for a full list of changes. As of Apache 1.3.12 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. Win32 binary distributions are based on the Microsoft Installer (.MSI) technology. While development continues to make this installation method more robust, questions should be directed to the news:comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows newsgroup. For an overview of new features introduced after 1.2 please see http://httpd.apache.org/docs/new_features_1_3.html 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 NT and 2000 (which fall under the "Win32" label), OS2, Netware, and TPF threaded platforms. 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 APACHE USERS: Apache 1.3 was designed for Unix OS variants. While the ports to non-Unix platforms (such as Win32, Netware or OS2) are of an acceptable quality, Apache 1.3 is not optimized for these platforms. Security, stability, or performance issues on these non-Unix ports do not generally apply to the Unix version, due to software's Unix origin. Apache 2.0 has been structured for multiple operating systems from its inception, by introducing the Apache Portability Library and MPM modules. Users on non-Unix platforms are strongly encouraged to move up to Apache 2.0 for better performance, stability and security on their platforms. Apache 1.3.31 Major changes Security vulnerabilities * CAN-2003-0987 (cve.mitre.org) In mod_digest, verify whether the nonce returned in the client response is one we issued ourselves. This problem does not affect mod_auth_digest. * CAN-2003-0020 (cve.mitre.org) Escape arbitrary data before writing into the errorlog. * CAN-2004-0174 (cve.mitre.org) Fix starvation issue on listening sockets where a short-lived connection on a rarely-accessed listening socket will cause a child to hold the accept mutex and block out new connections until another connection arrives on that rarely-accessed listening socket. * CAN-2003-0993 (cve.mitre.org) Fix parsing of Allow/Deny rules using IP addresses without a netmask; issue is only known to affect big-endian 64-bit platforms New features New features that relate to specific platforms: * Linux 2.4+: If Apache is started as root and you code CoreDumpDirectory, core dumps are enabled via the prctl() syscall. New features that relate to all platforms: * Add mod_whatkilledus and mod_backtrace (experimental) for reporting diagnostic information after a child process crash. * Add fatal exception hook for running diagnostic code after a crash. * Forensic logging module added (mod_log_forensic) * '%X' is now accepted as an alias for '%c' in the LogFormat directive. This allows you to configure logging to still log the connection status even with mod_ssl Bugs fixed The following noteworthy bugs were found in Apache 1.3.29 (or earlier) and have been fixed in Apache 1.3.31: * Fix memory corruption problem with ap_custom_response() function. The core per-dir config would later point to request pool data that would be reused for different purposes on different requests. * mod_usertrack no longer inspects the Cookie2 header for the cookie name. It also no longer overwrites other cookies. * Fix bug causing core dump when using CookieTracking without specifying a CookieName directly. * UseCanonicalName off was ignoring the client provided port information.