Overview of new features in Apache HTTP Server 2.4

This document describes some of the major changes between the 2.2 and 2.4 versions of the Apache HTTP Server. For new features since version 2.0, see the 2.2 new features document.

can now be configured per module and per directory. New levels trace1

have been added above the debug

sections can be used to set the configuration based on per-request criteria.SetEnvIfExpr

directive allows more fine grained control which directives are allowed in .htaccess

variables in the configuration, allowing a clearer representation if the same value is used at many places in the configuration. modproxyfcgi

to base loadbalancing decisions on the number of active connections on the backend servers.modproxyhtml

, allows to edit the response body with the full power of sed.modauthform

can now be configured to use an OCSP server to check the validation status of a client certificate. The default responder is configurable, along with the decision on whether to prefer the responder designated in the client certificate itself.mod_ssl

now also supports OCSP stapling, where the server pro-actively obtains an OCSP verification of its certificate and transmits that to the client during the handshake. mod_ssl

can now be configured to share SSL Session data between servers through memcachedmod_proxy

directive is now most optimally configured within a Location

block, and offers a significant performance advantage over the traditional two-parameter syntax when present in large numbers.modproxybalancer

CACHE filter can be optionally inserted at a given point in the filter chain to provide fine control over caching. mod_cache

can now cache HEAD requests.mod_cache

is now capable of serving stale cached data when a backend is unavailable (error 5xx).mod_cache

can now insert HIT/MISS/REVALIDATE into an X-Cache header.mod_include

directive and the related container directives, such as

(Query String Discard) and [END]

to simplify common rewriting scenarios.RewriteCond

adds support for nested groups.mod_ldap

, and other improvements in the handling of timeouts. This is especially useful for setups where a stateful firewall drops idle connections to the LDAP server.mod_ldap

to log debug information provided by the used LDAP toolkit.mod_info

can now dump the pre-parsed configuration to stdout during server startup.fcgistarter

documentation has been rearranged and almost completely rewritten, with a focus on examples and common usage, as well as on showing you when other solutions are more appropriate. The mod_ssl

documentation has been greatly enhanced, with more examples at the getting started level, in addition to the previous focus on technical details.mod_cache

, and the generic key/value caching provided by the modfilecache

, has been added which runs between the pre_config

hooks. It also runs before the test_config

hook when the -t

option is passed to httpd

hook allows modules to review interdependent configuration directive values and adjust them while messages can still be logged to the console. The user can thus be alerted to misconfiguration problems before the core open_logs

hook function redirects console output to the error log.mod_ssl

session cache. Providers using a shared-memory cyclic buffer, disk-based dbm files, and a memcache distributed cache are currently supported.mod_cache

module now includes a new cache_status

hook, which is called when the caching decision becomes known. A default implementation is provided which adds an optional X-Cache

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Apache HTTP Server Version 2.4