[olug] October Meeting

[roberson at olug.org]

OLUG,
	This is an early notice about the October meeting, which will be on the 1st. 
Hopefully, this gives everyone plenty of time to arrange their schedule and plan on attending!

This months meeting will be on Apache 2.0, specifically the core improvements over 1.3 series.
Please find the initial agenda below, I would like to discuss addititions/modifications via the list.
There is definitely not enough time to cover all of these subjects, so please provide 
feedback as to which subjects you would like to hear about! I see the first ( Threading ) as
a very important point when looking at the benefits of Apache2, So that will be included for sure.

This is also a good time to propose a change in agenda from the previous 3 to 4 years of OLUG meetings. 
I am proposing that if the meeting topic is one that people outside of OLUG would benefit in seeing, 
we make every possible effort to make the documentation public, by means of the OLUG website. 
Maybe even a recording of the meeting!



Unix Threading
        - On Unix systems with POSIX threads support, Apache can now run in a hybrid
          multiprocess, multi-threaded mode. This improves scalability for many, but
          not all configurations.

New Build System
        - The build system has been rewritten from scratch to be based on autoconf and
          libtool. This makes Apache's configuration system more similar to that of other packages.

Multiprotocol Support
        - Apache now has some of the infrastructure in place to support serving multiple protocols.
          mod_echo has been written as an example.

Better support for non-Unix platforms
        - Apache 2.0 is faster and more stable on non-Unix platforms such as BeOS, OS/2, and
          Windows. With the introduction of platform-specific multi-processing modules (MPMs)
          and the Apache Portable Runtime (APR), these platforms are now implemented in their
          native API, avoiding the often buggy and poorly performing POSIX-emulation layers.

New Apache API
        - The API for modules has changed significantly for 2.0. Many of the module-ordering/-priority
          problems from 1.3 should be gone. 2.0 does much of this automatically, and module ordering is
          now done per-hook to allow more flexibility. Also, new calls have been added that provide
          additional module capabilities without patching the core Apache server.

IPv6 Support
        - On systems where IPv6 is supported by the underlying Apache Portable Runtime library, Apache
          gets IPv6 listening sockets by default. Additionally, the Listen, NameVirtualHost, and VirtualHost
          directives support IPv6 numeric address strings (e.g., "Listen [fe80::1]:8080").

Filtering
        - Apache modules may now be written as filters which act on the stream of content as it is
          delivered to or from the server. This allows, for example, the output of CGI scripts to be
          parsed for Server Side Include directives using the INCLUDES filter in mod_include. The
          module mod_ext_filter allows external programs to act as filters in much the same way that
          CGI programs can act as handlers.

Simplified configuration
        - Many confusing directives have been simplified. The often confusing Port and BindAddress
          directives are gone; only the Listen directive is used for IP address binding; the
          ServerName directive specifies the server name and port number only for redirection and
          vhost recognition.

Regular Expression Library Updated
        - Apache 2.0 includes the Perl Compatible Regular Expression Library (PCRE). All regular
          expression evaluation now uses the more powerful Perl 5 syntax.