1 APACHE 2.5 STATUS: -*-text-*-
2 Last modified at [$Date$]
4 The current version of this file can be found at:
6 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/STATUS
8 Documentation status is maintained separately and can be found at:
10 * docs/STATUS in this source tree, or
11 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/trunk/docs/STATUS
13 Consult the following STATUS files for information on related projects:
15 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/apr/apr/trunk/STATUS
17 Patches considered for backport are noted in their branches' STATUS:
19 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/2.0.x/STATUS
20 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/2.2.x/STATUS
21 * http://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/httpd/httpd/branches/2.4.x/STATUS
26 [NOTE that x.{odd}.z versions are strictly Alpha/Beta releases,
27 while x.{even}.z versions are Stable/GA releases.]
29 2.5.0 : In Development.
31 Contributors looking for a mission:
33 * Just do an egrep on "TODO" or "XXX" in the source.
35 * Review the bug database at: http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/
37 * Review the "PatchAvailable" bugs in the bug database:
39 https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&product=Apache+httpd-2&keywords=PatchAvailable
41 After testing, you can append a comment saying "Reviewed and tested".
43 * Open bugs in the bug database.
45 * See also the STATUS file in the docs/ directory, which lists documentation-specific TODO items.
48 CURRENT RELEASE NOTES:
57 THINGS THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED EARLY IN THE 2.6/3.0 DEVELOPMENT CYCLE:
59 * Seriously ramp up/replace test framework and cases to have better
60 coverage of existing special cases and behaviours users rely on.
62 * Add performance testing to the test framework.
64 * Competely untangle core filesystem behavior where a filesystem htdocs/
65 resource wasn't indicated by the request URI.
67 * Refactor r->uri into a %escaped raw form presented by the client, and
68 a distinct decoded field used only for local filesystem access.
70 * Change default prefix from /usr/local/apache2 to something corresponding
71 to the project name. Rename apachectl to httpdctl.
73 * Change merge order of <Location> to be most specific match last. This
74 is more consistent with <Directory> and allows some optimizations for the
77 * Detect Lua 5.2.0 during configure and add LUA_COMPAT_ALL to CPPFLAGS.
78 Maybe it even suffices to add LUA_COMPAT_MODULE and individually
79 care about the two remaining incompatible code lines (one with lua_strlen,
82 * Event's timeout_mutex to enter keepalive state probably needs some
85 * Better H2 integration?
86 - adding handling of slave connections to mpm, no extra H2 workers,
87 triggering "events" read/write/timer from main/slave
88 - add slave writes/done/abort to events that wake up master connection
89 - disentangle core filters to server one purpose only, so that H2
90 versions can reuse them properly.
92 * Remove mod_access_compat?
94 * Ditch platforms/89/old prereqs or anything else?
96 * Leverage libmill? Drop serf?
98 * Better abstraction of slave connections and "requests".
99 - add abstraction for "response" as something that can be passed
100 through filters. To be serialized into the correct HTTP bytes on
102 - solve multi-threaded access to master connection props/module conf
105 * make mod_ssl more "core"?
107 * add high-level server configuration directives that can steer/influence
108 module defaults/warn/rejects related to security
110 * Ditch HTTP/0.9? At least, make HttpProtocolOptions Require1.0 the default.
112 * Restructure merge fn table/indexes to ignore modules with no directives,
113 and permit modules with dozens upon dozens of merge values to split these
114 into multiple functional config groups to avoid excessive merging.
115 Retitle from 'per-dir' to 'per-location' to better reflect the always-run
116 sections (location, ifexpr etc), while we phase out the file-oriented
119 * New versioning or release cadence.
121 * Ditch old APIs when we have the chance with 3.x. Consolidate current
122 functionality into APIs with stronger guarantees. (Specific examples TBD.)
124 * Remove as many undesirable-but-kept-for-backwards-compatibility behaviors
125 as possible from current config directives. (Specific examples TBD.)
127 * True event-loop/asynchronous support in the server core.
129 * Modify configuration syntax to separate meta-directives from runtime
130 directives (e.g. If vs. IfVersion). Allow as much static analysis of the
131 configuration as possible without needing to start the server to figure out
134 * Support JSON-like configuration files
136 * Opaque data structures w/ getters/setters
138 * Generic interface to enable runtime changes (adjusting log level, modifying
139 balancer information, toggling flags on/off). Perhaps modules can register
140 callbacks for making these changes?
142 * REST-based administration for existing (balancer/etc) and new dynamic
143 runtime changes (see above)
145 * Improve the look of generated pages (status, load-balancer...) with dynamic
146 update of the values. Generate HTML5 pages, instead of 3.2, Get rid of XHTML
147 in the generated pages.
149 * Add performance monitoring of the server, of each module (?), in order to help
150 understanding what worth looking at in order to improve overall performance.
151 (https://cdn.wp.nginx.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Amplify-Dashboards-page-base-for-filters.png)
153 OLD ISSUES THAT WERE THOUGHT TO BE SHOWSTOPPERS FOR 2.4 BUT OBVIOUSLY WEREN'T:
155 * Handling of non-trailing / config by non-default handler is broken
156 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-httpd-dev&m=105451701628081&w=2
157 jerenkrantz asks: Why should this block a release?
158 wsanchez agrees: this may be a change in behavior, but isn't
159 clearly wrong, and even if so, it doesn't seem like a
162 * the edge connection filter cannot be removed
163 http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=apache-httpd-dev&m=105366252619530&w=2
164 http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/httpd-dev/200501.mbox/%3C41E30B42.4060202@stason.org%3E
165 jerenkrantz asks: Why should this block a release?
166 stas replies: because it requires a rewrite of the filters stack
167 implementation (you have suggested that) and once 2.2 is
168 released you can't do that anymore.
169 pgollucci: this affects mod_perl I'm pretty sure.
172 RELEASE NON-SHOWSTOPPERS BUT WOULD BE REAL NICE TO WRAP THESE UP:
174 * Clean up all the kruft and *extremely* outdated stuff below...
176 * Maybe remove Limit/LimitExcept or at least make it log warnings when
179 * Patches submitted to the bug database:
180 http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&product=Apache+httpd-2&keywords=PatchAvailable
182 * Filter stacks and subrequests, redirects and fast redirects.
183 There's at least one PR that suffers from the current unclean behaviour
184 (which lets the server send garbage): PR 17629
185 nd says: Every subrequest should get its own filter stack with the
186 subreq_core filter as bottom-most. That filter does two things:
187 - swallow EOS buckets
188 - redirect the data stream to the upper request's (rr->main)
189 filter chain directly after the subrequest's starting
191 Once we have a clean solution, we can try to optimize
192 it, so that the server won't be slow down too much.
194 * RFC 2616 violations.
195 Closed PRs: 15852, 15857, 15859, 15861, 15864, 15869, 15870, 16120,
196 16125, 16135, 16136, 16137, 16138, 16139, 16140, 16518,
198 Open PRs: 15865, 15866, 15868, 16126, 16133, 16142, 16521, 42978
199 jerenkrantz says: need to decide how many we need to backport and/or
200 if these rise to showstopper status.
201 wrowe suggests: it would be nice to see "MUST" v.s. "SHOULD" v.s. "MAY"
202 out of this list, without reviewing them individually.
203 wrowe asks: what is lingering after 2.4.25 release? Offhand, only
206 * pipes deadlock on all platforms with limited pipe buffers (e.g. both
207 Linux and Win32, as opposed to only Win32 on 1.3). The right solution
208 is either GStein's proposal for a "CGI Brigade", or OtherBill's proposal
209 for "Poll Buckets" for "Polling Filter Chains". Or maybe both :-)
211 * All handlers should always send content down even if r->header_only
212 is set. If not, it means that the HEAD requests don't generate the
213 same headers as a GET which is wrong.
215 * exec cmd and suexec arg-passing enhancements
216 Status: Patches proposed
217 Message-ID: <20020526041748.A29148@prodigy.Redbrick.DCU.IE>
218 (see the "proc.patch" and "suexec-shell.patch" links in this message)
220 * The 2.0.36 worker MPM graceless shutdown changes work but are
221 a bit clunky on some platforms; eg, on Linux, the loop to
222 join each worker thread seems to hang, and the parent ends up
223 killing off the child with SIGKILL. But at least it shuts down.
225 chrisd: Has this been fixed by the changes for PR 38737?
227 * We do not properly substitute the prefix-variables in the configuration
228 scripts or generated-configs. (i.e. if sysconfdir is etc,
229 httpd-std.conf points to conf.)
231 * If any request gets through ap_process_request_internal() and is
232 scheduled to be served by the core handler, without a flag that this
233 r->filename was tested by dir/file_walk, we need to 500 at the very
234 end of the ap_process_request_internal() processing so sub_req-esters
235 know this request cannot be run. This provides authors of older
236 modules better compatibility, while still improving the security and
239 Status: still need to decide where this goes, OtherBill comments...
240 Message-ID: <065701c14526$495203b0$96c0b0d0@roweclan.net>
241 [Deleted comments regarding the ap_run_handler phase, as irrelevant
242 as BillS points out that "common case will be caught in
243 default_handler already (with the r->finfo.filetype == 0 check)"
244 and the issue is detecting this -before- we try to run the req.]
246 gregames says: can this happen somehow without a broken module
247 being involved? If not, why waste cycles trying to defend against
248 potential broken modules? It seems futile.
249 wrowe counters: no, it shouldn't happen unless the module is broken.
250 But the right answer is to fail the request up-front in dir/file
251 walk if the path was entirely invalid; and we can't do that either
252 UNTIL 2.1 or we break modules that haven't hooked map_to_storage.
254 * Can a static httpd be built reliably?
255 Message-ID: <20020207142751.T31582@clove.org>
257 * Usage of APR_BRIGADE_NORMALIZE in core_input_filter should be
260 <Pine.LNX.4.33.0201202232430.318-100000@deepthought.cs.virginia.edu>
261 Jeff wonders if we still care about this. It is no longer an
262 API issue but simply an extra trip through the brigade.
264 * Try to get libtool inter-library dependency code working on AIX.
265 Message-ID: <cm3n10lx555.fsf@rdu163-40-092.nc.rr.com>
267 Justin says: If we get it working on AIX, we can enable this
268 on all platforms and clean up our build system somewhat.
269 Jeff says: I thought I tested a patch for you sometime in
270 January that you were going to commit within a few days.
272 * Handling of %2f in URIs. Currently both 1.3 and 2.0
273 completely disallow %2f in the request URI path (see
274 ap_unescape_url() in util.c). It's permitted and passed
275 through in the query string, however. Roy says the
276 original reason for disallowing it, from five years ago,
277 was to protect CGI scripts that applied PATH_INFO to
278 a filesystem location and which might be tricked by
279 ..%2f..%2f(...). We *should* allow path-info of the
280 form 'http://foo.com/index.cgi/path/to/path%2finfo'.
281 Since we've revamped a lot of our processing of path
282 segments, it would be nice to allow this, or at least
283 allow it conditionally with a directive.
285 OtherBill adds that %2f as the SECOND character of a multibyte
286 sequence causes the request to fail! This happens notably in
289 * There is increasing demand from module writers for an API
290 that will allow them to control the server à la apachectl.
291 Reasons include sole-function servers that need to die if
292 an external dependency (e.g., a database) fails, et cetera.
293 Perhaps something in the (ever more abused) scoreboard?
295 On the other hand, we already have a pipe that goes between parent
296 and child for graceful shutdown events, along with an API that
297 can be used to send a message down that pipe. In threaded MPMs,
298 it is easy enough to make that one pipe be used for graceful
299 and graceless events, and it is also easy to open that pipe
300 to both parent and child for writing. Then we just need to
301 figure out how to do graceless on non-threaded MPMs.
303 * Allow the DocumentRoot directive within <Location > scopes? This
304 allows the beloved (crusty) Alias /foo/ /somepath/foo/ followed
305 by a <Directory /somepath/foo> to become simply
306 <Location /foo/> DocumentRoot /somefile/foo (IMHO a bit more legible
307 and in-your-face.) DocumentRoot unset would be accepted [and would
308 not permit content to be served, only virtual resources such as
309 server-info or server-status.
310 This proposed change would _not_ depricate Alias.
311 striker: See the thread starting with Message-ID:
312 JLEGKKNELMHCJPNMOKHOGEEJFBAA.striker@apache.org.
314 * Win32: Rotatelogs sometimes is not terminated when Apache
315 goes down hard. FirstBill was looking at possibly tracking the
316 child's-child processes in the parent process.
317 stoddard: Shared scoreboard might offer a good way for the parent
318 to keep track of 'other child' processes and whack them if the child
320 Other thoughts on walking the process chain using the NT kernel
321 have also been proposed on APR.
323 * Eliminate unnecessary creation of pipes in mod_cgid
325 * Combine log_child and piped_log_spawn. Clean up http_log.c.
328 * Platforms that do not support fork (primarily Win32 and AS/400)
329 Architect start-up code that avoids initializing all the modules
330 in the parent process on platforms that do not support fork.
332 * There are still a number of places in the code where we are
333 losing error status (i.e. throwing away the error returned by a
334 system call and replacing it with a generic error code)
336 * Mass vhosting version of suEXEC.
338 * All DBMs suffer from confusion in support/dbmmanage (perl script) since
339 the dbmmanage employs the first-matched dbm format. This is not
340 necessarily the library that Apache was built with. Aught to
341 rewrite dbmmanage upon installation to bin/ with the proper library
342 for predictable mod_auth_dbm administration.
343 Questions; htdbm exists, time to kill dbmmanage, or does it remain
344 useful as a perl dbm management example? If we keep it,
345 do we address the issue above?
348 Some additional items remaining:
349 - case_preserved_filename stuff
350 (use the new canonical name stuff?)
351 - find a new home for ap_text(_header)
352 - is it possible to remove the DAV: namespace stuff from util_xml?
354 * ap_core_translate() and its use by mod_mmap_static and mod_file_cache
355 are a bit wonky. The function should probably be exposed as a utility
356 function (such as ap_translate_url2fs() or ap_validate_fs_url() or
357 something). Another approach would be a new hook phase after
358 "translate" which would allow the module to munge what the
359 translation has decided to do.
360 Status: Greg +1 (volunteers)
362 * Explore use of a post-config hook for the code in http_main.c which
363 calls ap_fixup_virutal_hosts(), ap_fini_vhost_config(), and
364 ap_sort_hooks() [to reduce the logic in main()]
366 * read the config tree just once, and process N times (as necessary)
368 * (possibly) use UUIDs in mod_unique_id and/or mod_usertrack
370 * (possibly) port the bug fix for PR 6942 (segv when LoadModule is put
371 into a VirtualHost container) to 2.0.
373 * shift stuff to mod_core.h
375 * callers of ap_run_create_request() should check the return value
376 for failure (Doug volunteers)
378 * Fix the worker MPM to use POD to kill child processes instead
379 of ap_os_killpg, regardless of how they should die.
381 chrisd: Is this done, by any chance? See r92598 and r93358.
383 * Scoreboard structures could be changed in the future such that
384 proper alignment is not maintained, leading to segfaults on
385 some systems. Cliff posted a patch to deal with this issue but
386 later recanted. See this message to dev@apr.apache.org:
388 <Pine.LNX.4.44.0203011354090.16457-200000@deepthought.cs.virginia.edu>
390 * APXS either needs to be fixed completely for use when apr is out of tree,
391 or it should drop query mode altogether, and we just grow an
392 httpd-config or similar arrangement.
393 To quote a discussion in STATUS earlier:
395 thommay: this doesn't fix all the problems with apxs and out of
396 tree apr/apr-util, but it's a good start. There's still the
397 query cases; but I'm beginning to think that in these cases
398 the app should be querying ap{r,u}-config directly
399 deprecate -q: add htpd-config: gstein, pquerna, minfrin, pgollucci
402 TODO ISSUES REMAINING IN MOD_SSL:
404 * SSLRequire directive (parsing of) leaks memory
406 * ssl_var_lookup could be rewritten to be MUCH faster
409 * mod_proxy: Ability to run SSL over proxy gateway connections,
410 encrypting (or reencrypting) at the proxy.
412 * mod_cache: Handle ESI tags.
414 * mod_cache: Resolve issue of how to cache page fragments (or perhaps
415 -if- we want to cache page fragments). Today, mod_cache/mod_mem_cache
416 will cache #include 'virtual' requests (but not #include 'file'
417 requests). This was accomplished by making CACHE_IN a
418 CONTENT_SET-1 filter to force it to run before the SUBREQ_CORE
419 filter. But now responses cannot be cached that include the
420 effects of having been run through CONTENT_SET filters
421 (mod_deflate, mod_expires, etc). We could rerun all the
422 CONTENT_SET filters on the cached response, but this will not
423 work in all cases. For example, mod_expires relies on installing
424 the EXPIRATION filter during fixups. Contents served out of
425 mod_cache (out of the quick_handler) bypass -all- the request
426 line server hooks (Ryan really hated this. It is great for
427 performance, but bad because of the complications listed above).
429 mod_cache/mod_mem_cache/mod_cache_disk:
431 * mod_mem_cache: Consider adding a RevalidateTimeout directive to
432 specify time at which local cached content is to be revalidated
433 (ie, underlying file stat'ed to see if it has changed).
435 * mod_mem_cache/mod_cache_disk: Need to be able to query cache
436 status (num of entries, cache object properties, etc.).
437 mod_status could be extended to query optional hooks defined
438 by modules for the purpose of reporting module status.
439 mod_cache (et. al.) could define optional hooks that are called
440 to collect status. Status should be queryable by
442 jerenkrantz says: Yawn. Who cares.
444 * Regex containers don't work in an intutive way
445 Status: No one has come up with an efficient way to fix this
446 behavior. Dean has suggested getting rid of regex containers
448 OtherBill suggests: We at least seem to agree on eliminating
449 the <Container ~ foo> forms, and using only
450 <ContainerMatch foo> semantics.
452 * orig_ct in the byterange/multipart handling may not be
453 needed. Apache 1.3 just never stashed "multipart" into
454 r->content_type. We should probably follow suit since the
455 byterange stuff doesn't want the rest of the code to see the
456 multipart content-type; the other code should still think it is
457 dealing with the <orig_ct> stuff.
458 Status: Greg volunteers to investigate (esp. since he was most
459 likely the one to break it :-)
461 EXPERIMENTAL MODULES:
463 Experimental modules should eventually be be promoted to fully supported
464 status or removed from the repository entirely (ie, the
465 'experiment' failed). This section tracks what needs to happen to
466 get the modules promoted to fully supported status.