The Apache Software Foundation and The Apache HTTP Server Project are pleased to announce the eighth public release of the Apache 2.0 HTTP Server. This Announcement notes the significant changes in 2.0.45 as compared to 2.0.44.
OS2 users; note that Apache 2.0 versions *including* 2.0.45 still have a Denial of Service vulnerability that was identified and reported by Robert Howard that will fixed with the release of 2.0.46, but is too important to delay announcement today. The patch (here) must be applied before building on OS2. This patch will already be applied to all OS2 binaries released for Apache 2.0.45(here).
This version of Apache is principally a security and bug fix release. A summary of the bug fixes is given at the end of this document. Of particular note is that 2.0.45 addresses two security vulnerabilities, both affecting all platforms. Prior Apache 2.0 versions through 2.0.44 had a significant Denial of Service vulnerability that was identified and reported by David Endler and fixed with this release. The specific details of this issue will be published by David Endler one week from this release, on April 8th [this is the correct, revised date]. No more specific information is disclosed at this time, but all Apache 2.0 users are encouraged to upgrade now.
This release eliminated leaks of several file descriptors to child processes, such as CGI scripts, which could consitute a security threat on servers that run untrusted CGI scripts. This issue was identified, reported and addressed by Christian Kratzer and Bjoern A. Zeeb. The Apache Software Foundation would like to thank David Endler, Christian Kratzer, Bjoern Zeeb and Robert Howard for the responsible reporting of these issues.
Apache 2.0.42 and later releases mark a change in the Apache release process, and a new level of stability in the 2.0 series. With the release of Apache 2.0.42, we will make every effort to retain forward compatibility so that upgrading along the 2.0 series should be much easier. This compatibility extends from Apache release 2.0.42, so users of that version or later should be able to upgrade without changing configurations or updating DSO modules. (Users of earlier releases will need to recompile all modules in order to upgrade to 2.0.42 or later versions.)
We consider this release to be the best version of Apache available and encourage users of all prior versions to upgrade.