Re: strcasecmp raises its...

2022-05-19 Thread Stefan Eissing



> Am 19.05.2022 um 17:20 schrieb Ruediger Pluem :
> 
> 
> 
> On 5/19/22 5:15 PM, Stefan Eissing wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Am 19.05.2022 um 16:44 schrieb Joe Orton :
>>> 
>>> On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 05:34:22PM +0200, Ruediger Pluem wrote:
 On 5/18/22 4:55 PM, Joe Orton wrote:
> I think for httpd it is only safe and sane to run httpd with LANG=C, we 
> do this in the default service scripts in Fedora/RHEL for a very long 
> time. Other than the protocol parsing issues you can get in non-C 
> locales, you can also get "surprises" when sort order can change with 
> the system locale, impacting e.g. config file load ordering and more.
 
 Don't you need a locale sensitive case insensitive string comparison in 
 case of case blind file systems which support extended
 latin characters? I know these Germans with their Umlaute :-).
>>> 
>>> Heh. Well, I got away with it so far :)
>>> 
> So IMHO it is probably sufficient & simpler to adjust apachectl to set 
> LANG=C rather than trying to eliminate strcasecmp, and add another 
> strcasecmp() reimplementation in APR, in this case.
 
 We already have this implementation in APR and we use the
 httpd one which is just a forward port from APR to httpd until we require 
 a sufficient recent APR version in several places.
 The question is just if we should use them everywhere and thus do the 
 correct thing no matter what locale is set.
>>> 
>>> Ah, I missed that, thanks.
>>> 
>>> +1 from me on doing replacement of strcasecmp() with the 
>>> locale-insensitive versions then. At least with config options, protocol 
>>> data, it is definitely right.
>>> 
>> 
>> +1 from me for replacing our protocol+config handling code with the 
>> ap_cstr_casecmp().
> 
> +1. Just to mention: Christophe already did quite some work in this area.

Thanks, Christophe.

For my understanding: the code in APR for tables uses strcasecmp() and I am 
probably just too stupid to see where this is redefined?

Kind Regards,
Stefan

> 
> Regards
> 
> Rüdiger



Re: strcasecmp raises its...

2022-05-19 Thread Ruediger Pluem



On 5/19/22 5:15 PM, Stefan Eissing wrote:
> 
> 
>> Am 19.05.2022 um 16:44 schrieb Joe Orton :
>>
>> On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 05:34:22PM +0200, Ruediger Pluem wrote:
>>> On 5/18/22 4:55 PM, Joe Orton wrote:
 I think for httpd it is only safe and sane to run httpd with LANG=C, we 
 do this in the default service scripts in Fedora/RHEL for a very long 
 time. Other than the protocol parsing issues you can get in non-C 
 locales, you can also get "surprises" when sort order can change with 
 the system locale, impacting e.g. config file load ordering and more.
>>>
>>> Don't you need a locale sensitive case insensitive string comparison in 
>>> case of case blind file systems which support extended
>>> latin characters? I know these Germans with their Umlaute :-).
>>
>> Heh. Well, I got away with it so far :)
>>
 So IMHO it is probably sufficient & simpler to adjust apachectl to set 
 LANG=C rather than trying to eliminate strcasecmp, and add another 
 strcasecmp() reimplementation in APR, in this case.
>>>
>>> We already have this implementation in APR and we use the
>>> httpd one which is just a forward port from APR to httpd until we require a 
>>> sufficient recent APR version in several places.
>>> The question is just if we should use them everywhere and thus do the 
>>> correct thing no matter what locale is set.
>>
>> Ah, I missed that, thanks.
>>
>> +1 from me on doing replacement of strcasecmp() with the 
>> locale-insensitive versions then. At least with config options, protocol 
>> data, it is definitely right.
>>
> 
> +1 from me for replacing our protocol+config handling code with the 
> ap_cstr_casecmp().

+1. Just to mention: Christophe already did quite some work in this area.

Regards

Rüdiger



Re: strcasecmp raises its...

2022-05-19 Thread Stefan Eissing



> Am 19.05.2022 um 16:44 schrieb Joe Orton :
> 
> On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 05:34:22PM +0200, Ruediger Pluem wrote:
>> On 5/18/22 4:55 PM, Joe Orton wrote:
>>> I think for httpd it is only safe and sane to run httpd with LANG=C, we 
>>> do this in the default service scripts in Fedora/RHEL for a very long 
>>> time. Other than the protocol parsing issues you can get in non-C 
>>> locales, you can also get "surprises" when sort order can change with 
>>> the system locale, impacting e.g. config file load ordering and more.
>> 
>> Don't you need a locale sensitive case insensitive string comparison in case 
>> of case blind file systems which support extended
>> latin characters? I know these Germans with their Umlaute :-).
> 
> Heh. Well, I got away with it so far :)
> 
>>> So IMHO it is probably sufficient & simpler to adjust apachectl to set 
>>> LANG=C rather than trying to eliminate strcasecmp, and add another 
>>> strcasecmp() reimplementation in APR, in this case.
>> 
>> We already have this implementation in APR and we use the
>> httpd one which is just a forward port from APR to httpd until we require a 
>> sufficient recent APR version in several places.
>> The question is just if we should use them everywhere and thus do the 
>> correct thing no matter what locale is set.
> 
> Ah, I missed that, thanks.
> 
> +1 from me on doing replacement of strcasecmp() with the 
> locale-insensitive versions then. At least with config options, protocol 
> data, it is definitely right.
> 

+1 from me for replacing our protocol+config handling code with the 
ap_cstr_casecmp().

Cheers,
Stefan

Re: strcasecmp raises its...

2022-05-19 Thread Joe Orton
On Wed, May 18, 2022 at 05:34:22PM +0200, Ruediger Pluem wrote:
> On 5/18/22 4:55 PM, Joe Orton wrote:
> > I think for httpd it is only safe and sane to run httpd with LANG=C, we 
> > do this in the default service scripts in Fedora/RHEL for a very long 
> > time. Other than the protocol parsing issues you can get in non-C 
> > locales, you can also get "surprises" when sort order can change with 
> > the system locale, impacting e.g. config file load ordering and more.
> 
> Don't you need a locale sensitive case insensitive string comparison in case 
> of case blind file systems which support extended
> latin characters? I know these Germans with their Umlaute :-).

Heh. Well, I got away with it so far :)

> > So IMHO it is probably sufficient & simpler to adjust apachectl to set 
> > LANG=C rather than trying to eliminate strcasecmp, and add another 
> > strcasecmp() reimplementation in APR, in this case.
> 
> We already have this implementation in APR and we use the
> httpd one which is just a forward port from APR to httpd until we require a 
> sufficient recent APR version in several places.
> The question is just if we should use them everywhere and thus do the correct 
> thing no matter what locale is set.

Ah, I missed that, thanks.

+1 from me on doing replacement of strcasecmp() with the 
locale-insensitive versions then. At least with config options, protocol 
data, it is definitely right.

Regards, Joe




Re: Which programming language should be used for newly developed modules?

2022-05-19 Thread Simon Studer

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for the article. I think I will have to give this some more 
thought.


In any case, your input has been very helpful!

Best,
Simon




*From:* Stefan Eissing [mailto:ste...@eissing.org]
*Subject:* Which programming language should be used for newly developed 
modules?

*Date:* Monday, May 16, 2022, 11:03
*To:* modules-dev@httpd.apache.org


Am 12.05.2022 um 15:41 schrieb Simon Studer:

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for the quick and extensive feedback!

To be honest, I was not expecting there to be so many good reasons not to use 
Rust but I think I see your point that it would be difficult to maintain and 
that compatibility would absolutely be a concern.

 From what I gather most of the problems arise the moment you add the 
abstractions and if you do not add such abstractions there is not much reason 
to use Rust in the first place.

Golang had been cheered for when I first asked the question. Do you know by any 
chance if there would be similar issues with Golang? If not, I might give that 
a shot instead.

A good article about (against, actually) about Go and its 
shortcomings:https://fasterthanli.me/articles/lies-we-tell-ourselves-to-keep-using-golang

Kind Regards,
Stefan


Best,
Simon



On 5/12/22 12:13, Stefan Eissing wrote:

Hi Simon,


Am 12.05.2022 um 11:28 schrieb Simon Studer:

Hi everyone,

When I read about Apache's use of rustls I thought of this thread again.

For mod_tls, the module itself was written in C linking to the rustls-ffi. I 
have been wondering if it would be desirable to implement the modules 
themselves in Rust as well and how you would go about doing that. This is 
something I have superficially looked into in the past but never really 
followed through with.

I looked around and foundhttps://github.com/majorz/apache2-rs  which has been 
inactive since about 7 years ago. There are also a number of forks which are 
more recent but also appear to be inactive and left in an early development 
state. There appears to be one fork that has only just been worked on recently 
with minor tweaks but it is still the same for the most part.

When I started the work on mod_tls, I was pointed to that abandoned project as well. The 
main issue I see in this approach is that one does "duplicate" Apache APIs and 
those duplications do not follow any updates/improvements that the server will do over 
time. This may lead to various breakages, even when the API is extended in a C-backward 
compatible way. This happens quite often in the 2.4.x release line.

Examples of that:
- Adding an enum: if a new HTTP status comes up, the sever adds a definition to its 
enums, but the "pub enum Status {...}" (as defined 
inhttps://github.com/majorz/apache2-rs/blob/master/src/httpd.rs) would not follow. The 
Rust language runtime will panic() if it encounters an enum not properly defined.
– the wrappers inhttps://github.com/majorz/apache2-rs/blob/master/src/ffi.rs  do not 
follow either and will not account for added fields. Adding fields happens regularly. The 
"wrong" size will most likely be problematic in the Copy/Clone traits

To control that, all these definitions would best be done as part of the Apache 
httpd project. That would require a serious build-up of Rust competence among 
the core developers. It is doubtful, if the existing team is interested in 
that. Of course, Rust people who want to make a long-term commitment in the 
project would not be turned away. But so far, I do not see any.

Beyond the pure writing code stuff, the target platforms would need to be 
managed. Apache runs on architectures which are not supported by Rust.

Also, feedback from linux distributions I got (those may not be representative) 
is that they are hesitant to include more Rust components. I have heard of none 
that has picked up mod_tls in their package distribution. That hesitation seems 
mainly to stem from the fact that Rust regularly re-invents itself and requires 
everything to update to the current state of languages and crates. Those are 
mostly in 0.x.x versions and APIs do change regularly.

This means that updating a Firefox requires a Rust updated which requires an 
update of crates which then might mean other Rust packages will no longer 
compile and one has to update them too, if indeed such an update for the 
Firefox Rust version is available. etc. etc. This conflicts with any LTS 
distribution model.

tl;dr

The update/backward compatibility/dependency handling of Rust and the *nix 
world where Apache contributes too are different in vital aspects. This makes 
delivery of Rust based modules there difficult. If you do a module just for 
your own/organization, this might be fine.



Recently, I have started to implement something similar, mostly to get some 
familiarity with the process of using Rust's bindgen tools. The approach I 
chose is somewhat different as I generate the FFI with bindgen on the fly 

Final reminder: ApacheCon North America call for presentations closing soon

2022-05-19 Thread Rich Bowen
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Final reminder: ApacheCon North America call for presentations closing soon

2022-05-19 Thread Rich Bowen
[Note: You're receiving this because you are subscribed to one or more
Apache Software Foundation project mailing lists.]

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Final reminder: ApacheCon North America call for presentations closing soon

2022-05-19 Thread Rich Bowen
[Note: You're receiving this because you are subscribed to one or more
Apache Software Foundation project mailing lists.]

This is your final reminder that the Call for Presetations for
ApacheCon North America 2022 will close at 00:01 GMT on Monday, May
23rd, 2022. Please don't wait! Get your talk proposals in now!

Details here: https://apachecon.com/acna2022/cfp.html

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Re: strcasecmp raises its...

2022-05-19 Thread Ruediger Pluem



On 5/18/22 7:17 PM, Nick Kew wrote:
> 
>> On 18 May 2022, at 16:34, Ruediger Pluem  wrote:
>>
>> Rüdiger
> 
> What locale are YOU in there?  Any attempt at locale is going to have to draw 
> lines:

de_DE.UTF-8

> what are the rules for when Ruediger == Rüdiger?

There can be none. Because I can transcribe ü to ue , but not every ue is an ü 
the other way around.

Regards

Rüdiger