The following patch reverts to the previous and documented bevahiour (exhibited by 1.3). Currently <!--exec cmd does not work with suexec enabled as the proc.c will try to run : shell -c suexec uid gid ... so on.
Index: os/unix/unixd.c =================================================================== RCS file: /home/cvspublic/httpd-2.0/os/unix/unixd.c,v retrieving revision 1.52 diff -u -r1.52 unixd.c --- os/unix/unixd.c 17 May 2002 11:33:10 -0000 1.52 +++ os/unix/unixd.c 20 May 2002 23:59:53 -0000 @@ -357,6 +357,15 @@ newargs[2] = execgroup; newargs[3] = apr_pstrdup(p, progname); + /* + ** using a shell to execute suexec makes no sense thus + ** we force everything to be APR_PROGRAM, and never + ** APR_SHELLCMD + */ + if(apr_procattr_cmdtype_set(attr, APR_PROGRAM) != APR_SUCCESS) { + return APR_EGENERAL; + } + i = 0; do { newargs[i + 4] = args[i];