[STATUS] (apr) Wed Aug 8 23:45:27 EDT 2001

[Rodent of Unusual Size <Ke...@Golux.Com>]

APACHE PORTABLE RUNTIME (APR) LIBRARY STATUS:			-*-text-*-
Last modified at [$Date: 2001/08/07 19:57:44 $]

Release:

    2.0a9   : released December 12, 2000
    2.0a8   : released November 20, 2000
    2.0a7   : released October 8, 2000
    2.0a6   : released August 18, 2000
    2.0a5   : released August 4, 2000
    2.0a4   : released June 7, 2000
    2.0a3   : released April 28, 2000
    2.0a2   : released March 31, 2000
    2.0a1   : released March 10, 2000

RELEASE SHOWSTOPPERS:

    * complete the efforts started by DougM for cleaner fn naming
      conventions: see proposed name changes in renames_pending
      and offer up any additions/vetos/clarifications.
      DougM offered to complete the work with his nifty perl rename
      script at the hackathon. 

    * Win32 utf-8 filenames are broken by GetSecurityInfoByNameW()
      which won't accept Win32's canonical \\?\D:\foo long naming
      conventions.  Convert to _ByHandle or add an arg to our utf-8
      name converter so we can handle this.

RELEASE NON-SHOWSTOPPERS BUT WOULD BE REAL NICE TO WRAP THESE UP:
    * Get OTHER_CHILD support into Win32
        Status: Bill S. is looking into this

    * SysV semaphore support isn't usable by Apache when started as
      root because we don't have a way to allow the semaphore to be
      used by the configured User and Group.  Current work-around:
      change the initial permissions to 0666.  Needed code:  See
      1.3's http_main.c, SysV sem flavor of accept_mutex_init().
      Status: Jim will look into this

    * Build scripts do not recognise AIX 4.2.1 pthreads

    * Win32: Implement apr_shm_ functions 
      Status: rbb insists he has thoughts about splitting apr_shm_*
              mechanisms to support muliple models (some sort of 'keyed'
              schema as well as anonymous inheritable shmem), and has a
              possible solution to the 'ask for 1MB, then ask for 4x256kb
              bogosity, so we are waiting on this.

    * FirstBill says we need a new procattr, APR_CREATE_SUSPENDED (or
      something similar) to direct ap_create_process to create the
      process suspended. We also need a call to wake up the suspended 
      process This may not be able to be implemented everywhere though.
        Status: OtherBill asks, why?  What is the benefit, how is it
        portably implemented?  Unless this creates some tangible that
        mirrors another platform, then I'm -1.

    * Replace tables with a proper opaque ADT that has pluggable
      implementations (including something like the existing data type,
      plus hash tables for speed, with options for more later).
	Status: fanf is working on this.

    * add a version number to apr_initialize() as an extra failsafe against
      (APR) library version skew.
      MsgID: <Pi...@nebula.lyra.org>
      Status: Greg +1 (volunteers), Jeff +1, Ryan +1, Tony -0(?), david +1

    * The MM library is built as static and shared library. This should
      be set up to build only the required version.

    * add apr_crypt() and APR_HAS_CRYPT for apps to determine whether the
      crypt() function is available, and a way to call it (whether it is
      located in libc, libcrypt, or libufc)
      Justin says: Should apr_crypt() be in apr-util?

        Status: Greg +1 (volunteers)

    * apr_create_lock() changes:
      - It ignores the "type" parameter, so toss it.
      - The fname param is allowed to be NULL on the Unix platform.
        Change it to always use the passed value, and check callers.
        rbb says:   The type parameter is supposed to be used to determine
                    if we are working with a read/write lock or a mutex.
                    The fname parameter is essentially required if you
                    want to be portable, but I dislike wasting cycles to
                    outsmart the programmer.
        Justin says: The type parameter is now used.
        Status: david +1
                rbb -1

    * configure.in does post-processing on the AC_OUTPUT files (for
      VPATH support). This means that config.status doesn't do the
      right thing when you re-run it. We ought to revamp the makefiles 
      to do the right AC_SUBST stuff rather than depend upon rewriting.

      Sascha: As the rewriter is a crude hack, I would not worry too
              much about it.  It is designed to go away once we have
              a proper build system in place.
              
              One of the perceived deficiencies of automake is that it
              uses AC_SUBST too often, thereby slowing down the task of
              generating Makefiles significantly, because it applies
              dozens of substitutions to each Makefile.  And why?  Make's
              built-in macro processing is much more powerful, and
              combined with the include facility, generating Makefiles
              becomes simpler and faster.

    * use os_(un)cork in network_io/unix/sendrecv.c for FreeBSD's
      sendfile implementation.

      david: The socket options stuff is now in and using it should
             reduce the number of syscalls that are required for 
             os_cork and uncork, so the code should be reviewed to
             make use of the new calls.  If no-one beats me to it I'll
             get around to it soonish...

    * toss the per-Makefile setup of INCLUDES; shift to rules.mk.in
        rbb: This is a bad thing IMHO.  If we do this, then we
             can't use these makefiles for anything else.  For example,
             apr-util

    * add the rest of the pool accessor declare/impl macros.
      Justin says: Both thread and file have the accessors now.  Any others?
      Status: Greg volunteers

    * I think apr_open_stderr() and friends dup() the descriptor. That
      would allow the new/returned file to be closed (via pool cleanup
      or manually) without accidentally closing stderr/out.
      Justin says: Is this "I think it should?"

    * need to export the shared library extension (e.g. ".so") for the
      platform. clients need to use this to construct filenames to
      pass to apr_dso_load()
      -- note on Win32 we distinguish 'apache module' names from other 
         'loadable module' names, so be careful with Apache's directive.

    * may be good to have a --disable-ipv6 configure option

    * APR memory code - code has been added but we still need to
      - decide on a better name for the code
      - reformat to APR style (think this is now done, but some tabs left)
      - test on more systems
      - add more detailed tests to testmem.c
        Status: Optionally enable it with --enable-sms.  Still wildly 
                unproven.  But, it actually works as a replacement for 
                pools now.  It may even not segfault when running httpd
                under high-loads.  The performance impact/benefit still
                needs to be examined.

    * In line with the new SMS code is the fact that threading and pools
      just are not working together well.  This is due to the fact that
      the pool code has one global mutex (alloc_mutex) and one freelist
      (block_freelist) for all pools to share.  This means that only 
      one worker can be allocating memory at any given time.  This is 
      probably the reason why Apache 2.0 is faster with prefork MPM 
      (thread-disabled APR) than threaded MPM.  The solution to this
      is most likely to incorporate a rework of the pools to use the new
      SMS code and allow certain pools (i.e. request pools in httpd-2.0)
      to have an option for no locking (as they can't have contention
      by definition).  This would mean that the mutex and freelist
      must be moved inside of apr_pool_t.  Therefore, this is the 
      jumping-off point into SMS.  
        Justin: The SMS code has been checked into CVS (see above).
                To solve this problem, we want only one trivial SMS 
                per thread which acts as the parent for all SMSs in 
                that thread (giving us thread-local allocation).  
                Each descendant SMS should be something along the 
                lines of a tracking SMS.  That's how I see it anyway.
                There are other possibilities.  Any of those probably 
                work as well.  See the apr archives for more info.  
                We're still debating this.

    * Possible gmtime_r replacement in explode_time
      On Solaris (and possibly others), the gmtime_r libc function obtains
      a mutex.  We have seen 21/25 threads being blocked in this mutex on 
      a threaded httpd MPM when requesting static pages.  It may be worth 
      it to hand optimize this since there is no real need for a mutex at 
      the system level (straight arithmetic from what I can tell).  If you 
      have access to the Solaris source code:
        osnet_volume/usr/src/lib/libc/port/gen/time_comm.c.

    * Add a way to query APR for what features it has at runtime (i.e. 
      threads).
      Justin says: I'm not completely sold on this, but it has been mentioned 
                   before and at least added to STATUS.

    * apr_xlate.h generates a bunch of compiler warnings.

Documentation that needs writing:

    * API documentation


Stuff waiting for code thawing after Beta 1:

    * Identify and implement those protection bits that have general 
        usefulness, perhaps hidden, generic read-only [immutable],
        effective current user permissions, etc.

APR Stackable Memory Code
=========================

This is just a small list of things yet to be done, or things
that we may want/need to consider.

- add a shared memory module.

- locking needs to be addressed.  The scope of the locks needs
  to be defined and it's likely we'll need some way of
  varying the scope when locking.

- given the problems that can occur when trying to find 
  alloc/free problems we should probably have a special debug
  memory system that records everything it does and any
  other information we think is useful.

- in addition to the debugging system, we need to look at
  methods of checking memory allocations to ensure we're
  behaving when we have the ASSERT_MEMORY flag turned on.
  The pools in 1.3 had code from dean and Roy, Greg has added
  some special stuff for pools under Linux on 2.0, so we just
  need some ideas