APACHE 2.3 STATUS: -*-text-*- Last modified at [$Date: 2006-08-22 16:41:03 -0400 (Tue, 22 Aug 2006) $]
The current version of this file can be found at: * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/STATUS Documentation status is maintained seperately and can be found at: * docs/STATUS in this source tree, or * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/docs/STATUS Consult the following STATUS files for information on related projects: * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/apr/apr/trunk/STATUS * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/apr/apr-util/trunk/STATUS Patches considered for backport are noted in their branches' STATUS: * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/1.3.x/STATUS * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/2.0.x/STATUS * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/2.2.x/STATUS Release history: [NOTE that x.{odd}.z versions are strictly Alpha/Beta releases, while x.{even}.z versions are Stable/GA releases.] 2.3.0 : in development Contributors looking for a mission: * Just do an egrep on "TODO" or "XXX" in the source. * Review the bug database at: http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/ * Review the "PatchAvailable" bugs in the bug database: https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&product=Apache+httpd-2&keywords=PatchAvailable After testing, you can append a comment saying "Reviewed and tested". * Open bugs in the bug database. CURRENT RELEASE NOTES: RELEASE SHOWSTOPPERS: * Handling of non-trailing / config by non-default handler is broken http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-httpd-dev&m=105451701628081&w=2 jerenkrantz asks: Why should this block a release? wsanchez agrees: this may be a change in behavior, but isn't clearly wrong, and even if so, it doesn't seem like a showstopper. * the edge connection filter cannot be removed http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-httpd-dev&m=105366252619530&w=2 jerenkrantz asks: Why should this block a release? stas replies: because it requires a rewrite of the filters stack implementation (you have suggested that) and once 2.2 is released you can't do that anymore. CURRENT VOTES: * If the parent process dies, should the remaining child processes "gracefully" self-terminate. Or maybe we should make it a runtime option, or have a concept of 2 parent processes (one being a "hot spare"). See: Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Self-destruct: Ken, Martin, Lars Not self-destruct: BrianP, Ian, Cliff, BillS Make it runtime configurable: Aaron, jim, Justin, wrowe, rederpj, nd /* The below was a concept on *how* to handle the problem */ Have 2 parents: +1: jim -1: Justin, wrowe, rederpj, nd +0: Lars, Martin (while standing by, could it do something useful?) * Make the worker MPM the default MPM for threaded Unix boxes. +1: Justin, Ian, Cliff, BillS, striker, wrowe, nd +0: BrianP, Aaron (mutex contention is looking better with the latest code, let's continue tuning and testing), rederpj, jim -0: Lars pquerna: Do we want to change this for 2.2? RELEASE NON-SHOWSTOPPERS BUT WOULD BE REAL NICE TO WRAP THESE UP: * Patches submitted to the bug database: http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&product=Apache+httpd-2&keywords=PatchAvailable * Filter stacks and subrequests, redirects and fast redirects. There's at least one PR that suffers from the current unclean behaviour (which lets the server send garbage): PR 17629 nd says: Every subrequest should get its own filter stack with the subreq_core filter as bottom-most. That filter does two things: - swallow EOS buckets - redirect the data stream to the upper request's (rr->main) filter chain directly after the subrequest's starting point. Once we have a clean solution, we can try to optimize it, so that the server won't be slow down too much. * RFC 2616 violations. Closed PRs: 15857. Open PRs: 15852, 15859, 15861, 15864, 15865, 15866, 15868, 15869, 15870, 16120, 16125, 16126, 16133, 16135, 16136, 16137, 16138, 16139, 16140, 16142, 16518, 16520, 16521, jerenkrantz says: need to decide how many we need to backport and/or if these rise to showstopper status. wrowe suggests: it would be nice to see "MUST" v.s. "SHOULD" v.s. "MAY" out of this list, without reviewing them individually. * There is a bug in how we sort some hooks, at least the pre-config hook. The first time we call the hooks, they are in the correct order, but the second time, we don't sort them correctly. Currently, the modules/http/config.m4 file has been renamed to modules/http/config2.m4 to work around this problem, it should moved back when this is fixed. OtherBill offers that this is a SERIOUS problem. We do not sort correctly by the ordering arguments passed to the register hook functions. This was proven when I reordered the open_logs hook to attempt to open the error logs prior to the access logs. Possibly the entire sorting code needs to be refactored. * pipes deadlock on all platforms with limited pipe buffers (e.g. both Linux and Win32, as opposed to only Win32 on 1.3). The right solution is either GStein's proposal for a "CGI Brigade", or OtherBill's proposal for "Poll Buckets" for "Polling Filter Chains". Or maybe both :-) * All handlers should always send content down even if r->header_only is set. If not, it means that the HEAD requests don't generate the same headers as a GET which is wrong. * exec cmd and suexec arg-passing enhancements Status: Patches proposed Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (see the "proc.patch" and "suexec-shell.patch" links in this message) * The 2.0.36 worker MPM graceless shutdown changes work but are a bit clunky on some platforms; eg, on Linux, the loop to join each worker thread seems to hang, and the parent ends up killing off the child with SIGKILL. But at least it shuts down. chrisd: Has this been fixed by the changes for PR 38737? * --enable-mods-shared="foo1 foo2" is busted on Darwin. Pier posted a patch (Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>). * We do not properly substitute the prefix-variables in the configuration scripts or generated-configs. (i.e. if sysconfdir is etc, httpd-std.conf points to conf.) * If any request gets through ap_process_request_internal() and is scheduled to be served by the core handler, without a flag that this r->filename was tested by dir/file_walk, we need to 500 at the very end of the ap_process_request_internal() processing so sub_req-esters know this request cannot be run. This provides authors of older modules better compatibility, while still improving the security and robustness of 2.0. Status: still need to decide where this goes, OtherBill comments... Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [Deleted comments regarding the ap_run_handler phase, as irrelevant as BillS points out that "common case will be caught in default_handler already (with the r->finfo.filetype == 0 check)" and the issue is detecting this -before- we try to run the req.] gregames says: can this happen somehow without a broken module being involved? If not, why waste cycles trying to defend against potential broken modules? It seems futile. wrowe counters: no, it shouldn't happen unless the module is broken. But the right answer is to fail the request up-front in dir/file walk if the path was entirely invalid; and we can't do that either UNTIL 2.1 or we break modules that haven't hooked map_to_storage. * With AP_MODE_EXHAUSTIVE in the core, it is finally clear to me how the Perchild MPM should be re-written. It hasn't worked correctly since filters were added because it wasn't possible to get the content that had already been written and the socket at the same time. This mode lets us do that, so the MPM can be fixed. * Can a static httpd be built reliably? Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * Usage of APR_BRIGADE_NORMALIZE in core_input_filter should be removed if possible. Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Jeff wonders if we still care about this. It is no longer an API issue but simply an extra trip through the brigade. * Get perchild to work on platforms other than Linux. This will require a portable mechanism to pass data and file/socket descriptors between vhost child groups. An API was proposed on [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> * Try to get libtool inter-library dependency code working on AIX. Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Justin says: If we get it working on AIX, we can enable this on all platforms and clean up our build system somewhat. Jeff says: I thought I tested a patch for you sometime in January that you were going to commit within a few days. * Handling of %2f in URIs. Currently both 1.3 and 2.0 completely disallow %2f in the request URI path (see ap_unescape_url() in util.c). It's permitted and passed through in the query string, however. Roy says the original reason for disallowing it, from five years ago, was to protect CGI scripts that applied PATH_INFO to a filesystem location and which might be tricked by ..%2f..%2f(...). We *should* allow path-info of the form 'http://foo.com/index.cgi/path/to/path%2finfo'. Since we've revamped a lot of our processing of path segments, it would be nice to allow this, or at least allow it conditionally with a directive. OtherBill adds that %2f as the SECOND character of a multibyte sequence causes the request to fail! This happens notably in the ja-jis encoding. * FreeBSD, threads, and worker MPM. All seems to work fine if you only have one worker process with many threads. Add a second worker process and the accept lock seems to be lost. This might be an APR issue with how it deals with the child_init hook (i.e. the fcntl lock needs to be resynced). More examination and analysis is required. Status: Works with FreeBSD 5.3. Does not work in previous versions. This has also been reported on Cygwin. * There is increasing demand from module writers for an API that will allow them to control the server à la apachectl. Reasons include sole-function servers that need to die if an external dependency (e.g., a database) fails, et cetera. Perhaps something in the (ever more abused) scoreboard? On the other hand, we already have a pipe that goes between parent and child for graceful shutdown events, along with an API that can be used to send a message down that pipe. In threaded MPMs, it is easy enough to make that one pipe be used for graceful and graceless events, and it is also easy to open that pipe to both parent and child for writing. Then we just need to figure out how to do graceless on non-threaded MPMs. * Allow the DocumentRoot directive within <Location > scopes? This allows the beloved (crusty) Alias /foo/ /somepath/foo/ followed by a <Directory /somepath/foo> to become simply <Location /foo/> DocumentRoot /somefile/foo (IMHO a bit more legible and in-your-face.) DocumentRoot unset would be accepted [and would not permit content to be served, only virtual resources such as server-info or server-status. This proposed change would _not_ depricate Alias. striker: See the thread starting with Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Win32: Rotatelogs sometimes is not terminated when Apache goes down hard. FirstBill was looking at possibly tracking the child's-child processes in the parent process. stoddard: Shared scoreboard might offer a good way for the parent to keep track of 'other child' processes and whack them if the child goes down. Other thoughts on walking the process chain using the NT kernel have also been proposed on APR. * Eliminate unnecessary creation of pipes in mod_cgid * Combine log_child and piped_log_spawn. Clean up http_log.c. Common logging API. * Platforms that do not support fork (primarily Win32 and AS/400) Architect start-up code that avoids initializing all the modules in the parent process on platforms that do not support fork. * There are still a number of places in the code where we are losing error status (i.e. throwing away the error returned by a system call and replacing it with a generic error code) * Mass vhosting version of suEXEC. * All DBMs suffer from confusion in support/dbmmanage (perl script) since the dbmmanage employs the first-matched dbm format. This is not necessarily the library that Apache was built with. Aught to rewrite dbmmanage upon installation to bin/ with the proper library for predictable mod_auth_dbm administration. Questions; htdbm exists, time to kill dbmmanage, or does it remain useful as a perl dbm management example? If we keep it, do we address the issue above? * Integrate mod_dav. Some additional items remaining: - case_preserved_filename stuff (use the new canonical name stuff?) - find a new home for ap_text(_header) - is it possible to remove the DAV: namespace stuff from util_xml? * ap_core_translate() and its use by mod_mmap_static and mod_file_cache are a bit wonky. The function should probably be exposed as a utility function (such as ap_translate_url2fs() or ap_validate_fs_url() or something). Another approach would be a new hook phase after "translate" which would allow the module to munge what the translation has decided to do. Status: Greg +1 (volunteers) * Explore use of a post-config hook for the code in http_main.c which calls ap_fixup_virutal_hosts(), ap_fini_vhost_config(), and ap_sort_hooks() [to reduce the logic in main()] * read the config tree just once, and process N times (as necessary) * (possibly) use UUIDs in mod_unique_id and/or mod_usertrack * (possibly) port the bug fix for PR 6942 (segv when LoadModule is put into a VirtualHost container) to 2.0. * shift stuff to mod_core.h * callers of ap_run_create_request() should check the return value for failure (Doug volunteers) * Fix the worker MPM to use POD to kill child processes instead of ap_os_killpg, regardless of how they should die. chrisd: Is this done, by any chance? See r92598 and r93358. * Scoreboard structures could be changed in the future such that proper alignment is not maintained, leading to segfaults on some systems. Cliff posted a patch to deal with this issue but later recanted. See this message to dev@apr.apache.org: Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED] .cs.virginia.edu> * APXS either needs to be fixed completely for use when apr is out of tree, or it should drop query mode altogether, and we just grow an httpd-config or similar arrangement. To quote a discussion in STATUS earlier: thommay: this doesn't fix all the problems with apxs and out of tree apr/apr-util, but it's a good start. There's still the query cases; but I'm beginning to think that in these cases the app should be querying ap{r,u}-config directly gstein: agreed. apxs should deprecate the -q flag pquerna: I vote for a httpd-config, and to deprecate the -q flag. minfrin: +1 for httpd-config, and to deprecate -q. TODO ISSUES REMAINING IN MOD_SSL: * Do we need SSL_set_read_ahead()? * the ssl_expr api is NOT THREAD SAFE. race conditions exist: -in ssl_expr_comp() if SSLRequire is used in .htaccess (ssl_expr_info is global) -is ssl_expr_eval() if there is an error (ssl_expr_error is global) * SSLRequire directive (parsing of) leaks memory * Diffie-Hellman-Parameters for temporary keys are hardcoded in ssl_engine_dh.c, while the comment in ssl_engine_kernel.c says: "it is suggested that keys be changed daily or every 500 transactions, and more often if possible." * ssl_var_lookup could be rewritten to be MUCH faster * CRL callback should be pluggable * session cache store should be pluggable * init functions should return status code rather than ssl_die() * ssl_engine_pphrase.c needs to be reworked so it is generic enough to also decrypt proxy keys WISH LIST * mod_proxy: Ability to run SSL over proxy gateway connections, encrypting (or reencrypting) at the proxy. * mod_cache: Handle ESI tags. * mod_cache: Resolve issue of how to cache page fragements (or perhaps -if- we want to cache page fragements). Today, mod_cache/mod_mem_cache will cache #include 'virtual' requests (but not #include 'file' requests). This was accomplished by making CACHE_IN a CONTENT_SET-1 filter to force it to run before the SUBREQ_CORE filter. But now responses cannot be cached that include the effects of having been run through CONTENT_SET filters (mod_deflate, mod_expires, etc). We could rerun all the CONTENT_SET filters on the cached response, but this will not work in all cases. For example, mod_expires relies on installing the EXPIRATION filter during fixups. Contents served out of mod_cache (out of the quick_handler) bypass -all- the request line server hooks (Ryan really hated this. It is great for performance, but bad because of the complications listed above). mod_cache/mod_mem_cache/mod_disk_cache: * mod_mem_cache: Consider adding a RevalidateTimeout directive to specify time at which local cached content is to be revalidated (ie, underlying file stat'ed to see if it has changed). * mod_cache: CacheEnable/CacheDisable should accept regular expressions. jerenkrantz says: Too slow. Get regexs away from speedy caches by default. Introduce a new CacheEnableRegex if you want. * mod_mem_cache/mod_disk_cache: Need to be able to query cache status (num of entries, cache object properties, etc.). mod_status could be extended to query optional hooks defined by modules for the purpose of reporting module status. mod_cache (et. al.) could define optional hooks that are called to collect status. Status should be queryable by HTTP or SNMP? jerenkrantz says: Yawn. Who cares. * MaxRequestsPerChild measures connections, not requests. Until someone has a better way, we'll probably just rename it "MaxConnectionsPerChild". * Regex containers don't work in an intutive way Status: No one has come up with an efficient way to fix this behavior. Dean has suggested getting rid of regex containers completely. OtherBill suggests: We at least seem to agree on eliminating the <Container ~ foo> forms, and using only <ContainerMatch foo> semantics. * orig_ct in the byterange/multipart handling may not be needed. Apache 1.3 just never stashed "multipart" into r->content_type. We should probably follow suit since the byterange stuff doesn't want the rest of the code to see the multipart content-type; the other code should still think it is dealing with the <orig_ct> stuff. Status: Greg volunteers to investigate (esp. since he was most likely the one to break it :-) EXPERIMENTAL MODULES: Experimental modules should eventually be be promoted to fully supported status or removed from the repository entirely (ie, the 'experiment' failed). This section tracks what needs to happen to get the modules promoted to fully supported status.
