Inets Release Notes

Inets 2.5.4

Improvements and new features

Support for choosing port number when opening FTP connection.
It is now possible to open a connection using a user specified port number.
Default is still 21.
Own Id: OTP-3751

Fixed errors and malfunctions

Wrong return value from FTP function recv_bin.
The function actually returned: {ok,{ok,binary()}} instead of {ok,binary()}
Own Id: OTP-3755
Aux Id: Seq 4958
The HTTP server hangs due to unhandled info: {'EXIT',<0.12542.6>,badsig}
Crash of the listener process for this reason not handled.
Own Id: OTP-3793
Aux Id: Seq 5020

Known bugs and problems

ftp:open(Host,Port) does not work. Use ftp:open(Host,Port,[]) instead.

Inets 2.5.3

Improvements and new features

It's now possible to perform runtime upgrade/downgrade

Further improvment of handling of lack-of-resources situations.

Fixed errors and malfunctions

CGI related problem with executable files on win32.

Heavy load state incorrect.

Known bugs and problems

No known problems.

Inets 2.5.2

Improvements and new features

Now possible to run more then one HTTP server in a node listening to the same port number but different addresses.

Fixed errors and malfunctions

Status code 404 incorrectly used instead of 500.

Handling of lack of resources (to many open files, ...) improved.

Use of obsolete and not recommended functions removed.

{error,FileInfo},

kernel/include/file.hrl.

Call of non-existing function 'inet:getaddr/1' in httpd_conf:load/2 Corrected.

Call to non-existing module 'http_conf' in mod_auth:load/2. Corrected.

An error (module mod_include) in the parsing of SHTML files could cause the handling process to crash. The reason was the reading of files was done in chunks. If a directive or comment starts at the end of a chunk but ends in the next chunk, this was taken as EOF and an exception was thrown. This exception was not handled which caused the process to crash.

The FTP failure 'File system full' during file transfer is not handled properly.

Known bugs and problems

It is not possible to perform runtime upgrade from older versions. This is temporary and will be fixed in the next release

Inets 2.5.1

Improvements and new features

New option added to httpd_core: BindAddress. BindAddress defines which address the server will listen to.

Inets 2.5

Fixed errors and malfunctions

Possible error codes from http_socket were not handled. Corrected.

Improvements and new features

Errors in the examples and documentation were corrected.

Inets 2.3

Fixed errors and malfunctions

ftp:open crashed if connection was closed before a complete welcome message was received, this is now fixed.

Improvements and new features

The authentication modules have been rewritten with support for dets, plain and mnesia authentication databases. There is also a new module called 'mod_secrity', which implements security event logging and notification. Both the mod_auth and mod_security modules have an API for the programmer that implements functions they will require to have full control over access restricted parts of a site. NOTE: The mod_auth_mnesia module does not implement the API previously found there, please see the mod_auth documentation.

Support for the sockets application has been removed from INETS, use SocketType ssl or ip_comm instead.

The HTTP server has got improved efficiency through recognition of the 'If-Modified-Since' header field.

CGI scripts are now supported on Windows aswell as UNIX platforms.

mod_auth now supports the 'deny from' directive.

The HTTP server now experimentaly supports persistent connections (as defined in RFC2068). This is the first step towards HTTP/1.1 support. Enabling this feature may greatly improve performance, as the server then uses the same TCP connection for more than one HTTP request. Two new configuration directives are defined for httpd_core: KeepAlive max-requests KeepAliveTimeout seconds

1.1 INETS 2.2.5

1.1.1 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The server-side include parsing (mod_include(3)) no longer has problems with big HTML files. These problems previously resulted in a memory intensive emulator and lingering processes.
Own Id: OTP-2507
HTTP-1.1 requests are now accepted; even though the server is HTTP-1.0 compliant. HTTP-1.1 uses the same external protocol as HTTP-1.0 anyway; as defined in RFC 1945.
Own Id: OTP-2679

1.1.2 Known bugs and problems

If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!

1.2 INETS 2.2.2

1.2.1 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

"unknown" is not always put into the remotehost field of access logs when the obsolote sockets type is used. The remotehost field is furthermore always a numerical IP address even if the new ip_comm socket type is used.
Own Id: OTP-2225, seq 682
The server does a complete cleanup even though httpd:stop/1 wasn't used to terminate the server.
Own Id: OTP-2229
The server now uses the new inet(3) distribution mechanism as default if the SocketType directive not is used in the server configuration, i.e. as stated in httpd_core(3).
Own Id: OTP-2554
The ErrorLog and ErrorDiskLog directives now handles absolute file paths on Windows NT/95.
Own Id: OTP-2504, seq885

1.2.2 Known bugs and problems

If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!

1.3 INETS 2.2.1.1

1.3.1 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

TCP errors is now taken care of.
Own Id: OTP-2389
Passwords are now encoded before storage in Mnesia.
Own Id: OTP-2278,seq737
httpd_socket:peername problem solved.
Own Id: OTP-2225,seq682
"ErlScriptAlias all" makes the server accept client access to all modules in the Erlang node.
Own Id: OTP-2285,seq743

1.3.2 Known bugs and problems

If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!

1.4 INETS 2.2.1

1.4.1 Improvements and New Features

The module mod_ecgi is now called mod_esi and the "Module" config directive has to be updated accordingly.
(*** INCOMPATIBILITY with INETS 2.1 **)
The config directives "ServerName", "Port", "ServerRoot" and "DocumentRoot" are now mandatory.
(*** INCOMPATIBILITY with INETS 2.1 **)
The default value for the config directive "SocketType" is "ip_comm" (Erlang's new communication mechanism) instead of the obsolete sockets dito.
(*** INCOMPATIBILITY with INETS 2.1 **)

1.4.2 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

The access log format now uses a correct date format.
Own Id: OTP-2068
ftp:open/2 no longer hangs indefinitely.
Own Id: OTP-2041, seq526

1.4.3 Known bugs and problems

If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!

1.5 INETS 2.2

1.5.1 Improvements and New Features

The server documentation has been thoroughly reviewed and enhanced. The documentation has been grouped into 18 manual pages and the Erlang Web Server API (EWSAPI) is described in detail.
Own Id: OTP-1439
Mnesia based management of authentication data is now supported. It is now possible to on-the-fly manage user and group information to be used for authentication. (Read more about this in the EWSAPI module mod_auth_mnesia description).
Own Id: OTP-1591
Own Id: OTP-1491
An alternative mechanism for storage of log information is no supported. This mechanism uses disk_log(3) to enable the use of wrap logs etc. (Read more about this in the EWSAPI module mod_disk_log description).
Own Id: OTP-1491
A new config directive SocketType has been added making it possible to specify which communication mechanism to use, i.e. ip_comm, sockets or ssl. ip_comm is the default choice if nothing is specified in the server config file. (Read more about SocketType in httpd_core(3).
Own Id: OTP-1600
A new mandatory config directive ServerName has been added telling the server about its actual host name. ServerName must be specified for the server to start. (Read more about ServerName in httpd_core(3).
Server-Side Includes is now supported. (Read more about this in the EWSAPI module mod_include description).
Filetype/method-based script execution is now supported (Read more about this in the EWSAPI module mod_actions description).
Basic directory indexing is now supported (Read more about this in the EWSAPI module mod_dir description).
The ftp client has been extended with a set of new functions: delete/2, recv_bin, rename, rmdir, send_bin, and functions for sending file chunks.
Own Id: OTP-1724, OTP-1803

1.5.2 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

It is now possible to start a server using erl command's -s option.
Own Id: OTP-1444
Erlang CGI-scripts now correctly handles %3A character sequences in the CGI QUERY_STRING
Own Id: OTP-1459
Aux Id: HA54106
The ftp client now correctly receives a file in the current directory of the client
Own Id: OTP-1809
The ftp client is now linked to the owner.
Own Id: OTP-1802

1.5.3 Known bugs and problems

If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!

1.6 INETS 2.1

1.6.1 Improvements and New Features

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is now supported. Read more about SSL in the OTP SSL application.

Erlang CGI-scripts now correctly handles colons (:) in the QUERY_STRING
Own Id: OTP-1444
httpd beam start-up configuration problems solved.
Own Id: OTP-1467
Aux Id: HA54102

1.6.2 Known bugs and problems

It is currently not possible to start a server using erl command's -s option!
If a Web browser connect itself to an SSL enabled server using a URL not starting with https:// the server will hang due to an ugly bug in the SSLeay package!
That the ftp client did not check for eof in a file read, has been corrected.
Own Id: OTP-1572

1.7 INETS 2.0

1.7.1 Improvements and New Features

The Web server has been totally redesigned and now supports the Erlang Scripting Interface (ESI), CGI-1.1, User Authentication, Common Log Format , URL Aliasing, Mime Type Settings, Erlang Web Server API (EWSAPI) and External Config Files (Apache style) etc.

1.7.2 Known bugs and problems

It seems that there is a problem starting the server using the erl command's -s option!

1.8 INETS 1.0.2

1.8.1 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

A file with a .js file suffix is now mime stamped with application/x-javascript (Ticket: OTP-1221).
Output produced by an Erlang CGI script is now parsed before delivery, i.e. a valid response status code is generated, e.g. Location: http://www.yahoo.com\n\n generates the status code 302 to inform the client of the redirect declared in the Location: field (Ticket: OTP-1227).

1.9 INETS 1.0.1

1.9.1 Improvements and New Features

Addition of httpd:parse_query/1 which parses input to eval and erl scripts.
Examples in httpd_example + documentation has been updated and no longer use flatten and ++ as extensively. Cause: It is OK to return nested lists to a port, term_to_binary/1 and size/1.
It is now OK to use "/" instead of ":" in eval and erl scripts as module:function separator.

1.9.2 Fixed Bugs and Malfunctions

Manually started HTTP servers (start/6) no longer linked to the eshell (gosh!).
Data transfer is now gracefully stopped if a HTTP client aborts a HTTP request.
Input to erl and eval script no longer gets automatically (and wrongly) converted (+ made into space and %xx made into the appropriate character). Use the new parse_query function instead.

1.10 INETS 1.0

New application.