SCM Repositories - aolserver

    1 
    2 AOLserver 4.5 - June 2006
    3 -------------------------
    4 
    5 AOLserver 4.5 is a major upgrade including several new Tcl commands,
    6 C API's, and resource management improvements.
    7 
    8 
    9 Contents:
   10 --------
   11 
   12 New and Updated Binaries
   13 New Modules
   14 New and Updated Tcl Commands
   15 New and Updated C Routines
   16 Additional Updates
   17 Changes to the Build Process
   18 Bug Fixes
   19 Known Issues
   20 
   21 
   22 New and Updated Binaries:
   23 ------------------------
   24 
   25 libnsd:
   26 	The AOLserver library now includes an entry point suitable
   27 	for loading into an ordinary, thread-enabled, tclsh, e.g.,:
   28 
   29 	# tclsh
   30 	% load /usr/local/aolserver/lib/libnsd.so
   31 	% ns_time
   32 
   33 	This provides the full set of Tcl commands within the
   34 	AOLserver core although several commands will generate
   35 	errors for lack of an HTTP request context (e.g., ns_conn).
   36 
   37 nstclsh:
   38 	A simple Tcl-shell linked against libnsd. It's equivalent
   39 	to loading libnsd into an ordinary tclsh as described above.
   40 
   41 
   42 New Modules:
   43 -----------
   44 
   45 nszlib:
   46 	The popular nszlib module written by Vlad Seryakov has been
   47 	integrated into the core release with modifications to
   48 	enable the new Ns_Gzip routine.  The module also provides
   49 	the "ns_zlib" command for compressing and uncompressing
   50 	strings and files.
   51 
   52 nsproxy:
   53 	The nsproxy modules provides the "ns_proxy" command which
   54 	enables sending Tcl scripts to a proxy process connected
   55 	via a pipe.  The proxy includes core Tcl commands as well
   56 	as AOLserver commands from the libnsd library. Evaluating
   57 	scripts in a proxy process can be used to isolate and/or
   58 	timeout thread-unsafe or otherwise unsafe 3rd party code.
   59 
   60 
   61 New and Updated Tcl Commands:
   62 ----------------------------
   63 
   64 The following Tcl commands are new or updated from the last release.
   65 As few of the man pages have yet to be written, see the source code
   66 for usage details and options.
   67 
   68 ns_pools:
   69 	The "ns_pools" command enables configuration of one or more
   70 	pools of connection processing threads. The pools allow
   71 	certain requests to be handled by specific threads. This
   72 	could, for example, ensure multiple long running requests
   73 	don't block other short running requests.  Pools are selected
   74 	based on method/url pairs similar to the mappings managed
   75 	by the "ns_register_proc" command.  By default, all requests
   76 	are handled by a single, unlimited, "default" pool.  There
   77 	is also an "error" pool as described below.  Coupled with
   78 	the new "ns_limits" command, pools can provide for sophisticated
   79 	resource management.
   80 
   81 ns_limit:
   82 	The "ns_limit" command enables setting various resource
   83 	limits for specified method/url combinations. These limits
   84 	include such items as max concurrent connections, max file
   85 	upload size, and timeouts waiting for connection processing.
   86 	When limits are exceeded, connections are immediately
   87 	dispatched to a dedicated "error" connection processing
   88 	pool to generate a quick error response. By default all
   89 	requests share the same default limits.  Coupled with the
   90 	new "ns_pools" command, URL-based limits can provide for
   91 	sophisticated resource management.
   92 
   93 ns_register_fastpath:
   94 	The new "ns_register_fastpath" command enables mapping of
   95 	specific directories to the internal static file response
   96 	code. See also the new Ns_FastPathOp API.
   97 
   98 ns_adp_flush:
   99 	The "ns_adp_flush" command allows buffered ADP output to
  100 	be immediately flushed to the client. If no output has been
  101 	sent, the server will first generate the appropriate HTTP
  102 	response headers for a streaming response.  An implicit
  103 	flush will also be performed when the ADP buffer overflows.
  104 
  105 ns_adp_close:
  106 	The "ns_adp_close" command flushes content as with ns_adp_flush
  107 	and then closes the connection so no additional content can
  108 	be sent. This can be useful to keep the client from waiting
  109 	while post-processing steps continue.
  110 
  111 ns_adp_registerscript
  112 	The "ns_adp_registerscript" command is similar to the
  113 	ns_adp_regsiteradp command except it registers an ordinary
  114 	script instead of text/script ADP code to execute for a
  115 	given tag.
  116 
  117 ns_adp_ictl:
  118 	The new "ns_adp_ictl" command provides various options to
  119 	manage the ADP execution environment for current Tcl
  120 	interpreter, e.g.:
  121 
  122     	ns_adp_ctl bufsize ?size?;	# Max output before forced flush
  123     	ns_adp_ctl autoabort ?bool?;	# Abort execution on client drop?
  124     	ns_adp_ctl singlescript ?bool?;	# Compile pages as a single script?
  125     	ns_adp_ctl gzip ?bool?;		# Gzip output if enabled in server?
  126     	ns_adp_ctl trimspace ?bool?;	# Trim leading whitespace in response?
  127     	ns_adp_ctl channel ?chan?;	# Set channel for ADP output
  128 	ns_adp_ctl trace ?bool?;	# Trace ADP execution
  129 	ns_adp_ctl detailerror ?bool?;	# Generate detailed error messages
  130 	ns_adp_ctl displayerror ?bool?;	# Format error message in page output
  131 	ns_adp_ctl stricterror ?bool?;	# Abort ADP execution on flush error
  132 
  133 ns_adp_include:
  134 	The "ns_adp_include" command has been enhanced with the new
  135 	"-cache ttl" and "-nocache" options to support execution
  136 	results caching. Applications which isolate fully dynamic
  137 	page components (e.g., personalized content) from partially
  138 	dynamic page components (e.g., slowly changing news headlines)
  139 	can benefit from using these options to cache and reuse the
  140 	results of slowly changing components. This approach has
  141 	the potential to dramatically improve the performance of
  142 	such applications.
  143 
  144 ns_adp_ident:
  145 	The new "ns_adp_ident" command can be used to tag and query
  146 	ADP file versions.
  147 
  148 ns_cache:
  149 	The "ns_cache" command enables creation and management of
  150 	memory-based caches utilizing the underlying Ns_Cache C
  151 	API's.
  152 
  153 ns_driver
  154 	The new "ns_driver" command provides a "list" option to
  155 	enumerate all driver instances and a "query" option to
  156 	return a Tcl list of various statistics for a given driver.
  157 
  158 ns_ictl:
  159 	The "ns_ictl" command has been enhanced with several new
  160 	options including:
  161 
  162 	trace:
  163 		Enables Tcl-script based callbacks at points defined
  164 		by the Ns_TclRegisterTrace routine.
  165 
  166 	threads:
  167 		Returns a list of all threads with Tcl interps for
  168 		current virtual server.
  169 
  170 	cancel:
  171 		Sends an async-cancel message to a given thread,
  172 		interrupting any Tcl execution in any AOLserver-based
  173 		interpreter executing on the thread.
  174 
  175 	package:
  176 		Registers a Tcl package to be automatically required
  177 		in each interp for the current virtual server.
  178 
  179 	once:
  180 		Registers a script to be executed exactly once for
  181 		a virtual server.
  182 
  183 ns_internalredirect:
  184 	The "ns_internalredirect" command enables re-authorization
  185 	and restart of a connection as if it where originally for
  186 	a different URL. This command provides access to the
  187 	previously private routines used internally for such purposes,
  188 	e.g., by the fastpath to handle directory URL's mapped to
  189 	an ADP index files such as "index.adp".
  190 
  191 ns_for:
  192 ns_foreach:
  193 ns_while:
  194 	These commands are replacements for the standard "for",
  195 	"foreach", and "while" command which have the same semantics
  196 	but also allow for monitoring and control by the "ns_loop_ctl"
  197 	command described below.
  198 
  199 ns_loop_ctl:
  200 	The "ns_loop_ctl" command enables listing, pause, resume,
  201 	cancel, and evaluation of a script within "ns_for",
  202 	"ns_foreach", and "ns_while" loops executing in other
  203 	threads. In addition, the "install" option can be used at
  204 	to swap the "ns_for", "ns_foreach", and "ns_while" commands for
  205 	the "for", "foreach", and "while" commands, enabling monitoring
  206 	of all loops in unmodified code.
  207 
  208 ns_register_encoding
  209 	The new "ns_register_encoding" command enables mapping of
  210 	method/URL combinations to specific charset encodings used
  211 	to decode the request. If no mapping exists for a given
  212 	method/URL, the server will use that defined for the virtual
  213 	server or process wide by the "urlcharset" config setting.
  214 	This setting defaults to NULL, or no encoding, thus assuming
  215 	UTF-8 characters in the request data.
  216 
  217 ns_returnmoved:
  218 	The "ns_returnmoved" command is similar to the "ns_returnredirect"
  219 	command but returns a 301 "permanently moved" HTTP status
  220 	code along with the redirected location.
  221 
  222 
  223 New and Updated C Routines:
  224 --------------------------
  225 
  226 The following routines are new or updated from the last release.
  227 As few of the man pages have yet to be written, see the source code
  228 for parameter and results details.
  229 
  230 Ns_BinPath:
  231 	New routine to construct file pathnames relative to the
  232 	bin/ subdirectory similar to the Ns_LibPath and Ns_HomePath
  233 	routines.
  234 
  235 Ns_ConnContent:
  236 	Return a pointer to request content. If the content is not
  237 	in memory and has been spooled to a temp file, a new file
  238 	mapping will be created and returned.  Note that the content
  239 	is likely, but not guaranteed, to be followed by a terminating
  240 	null byte. See also the "content" option of the "ns_conn"
  241 	command.
  242 
  243 Ns_ConnContentFd:
  244 	Return a file descriptor open on a temp file containing
  245 	request content.  If the content is in memory only, it will
  246 	first be copied to a newly allocated temp file.  You must
  247 	not close the returned fd as it is owned by the server core
  248 	which will reuse the open file for subsequent requests.
  249 	For an example, see nscgi/nscgi.c which has been updated
  250 	to use Ns_ConnContentFd instead of spooling to a temp file
  251 	directly. See also the "contentchannel" option to the
  252 	"ns_conn" command which returns a duplicate of the fd
  253 	returned via Ns_ConnContentFd registered as a Tcl channel.
  254 
  255 Ns_ConnContentOnDisk:
  256 	Returns 1 if the request content is already located in a
  257 	temp file or 0 if the content is located in memory.  A call
  258 	to Ns_ConnContent after Ns_ConnContentOnDisk has returned
  259 	1 will result in a new file memory mapping being created.
  260 
  261 Ns_ConnGetFile:
  262 Ns_ConnFirstFile:
  263 Ns_ConnNextFile:
  264 	Routines to find a specific file or enumerate all file
  265 	objects embedded within a multipart form. See also the
  266 	"files" option to the "ns_conn" command.
  267 
  268 Ns_ConnSendFdEx:
  269 	Send contents of an open file descriptor from a specific
  270 	file offset.  This routine uses pread on Unix to enable
  271 	multiple simultaneous calls with the same open fd and is
  272 	currently unsupported on Win32.
  273 
  274 Ns_ConnReturnOpenFdEx:
  275 	Generate a complete response with content from open file
  276 	descriptor at given offset. This routine uses Ns_ConnSendFdEx
  277 	and as such is also unsupported on Win32.
  278 
  279 Ns_ConnReturnServiceUnavailable:
  280 	New routine to return an HTTP 503 response.
  281 
  282 Ns_CheckStack:
  283 	Checks if the stack appears to have overrun. Note that the
  284 	ADP evaluation engine now calls Ns_CheckStack on entry to
  285 	each call frame and will generate an exception in the case
  286 	of an endlessly recursive ADP condition.
  287 
  288 Ns_ClsAlloc:
  289 Ns_ClsSet:
  290 Ns_ClsGet:
  291 	New interface, similar to thread-local storage, which enables
  292 	user data to be saved and retrieved within the connection
  293 	structure. This interface is intended to be used with the
  294 	Ns_QueueWait interface so that data can be saved in the
  295 	driver thread and retrieved later in a connection processing
  296 	thread.
  297 
  298 Ns_ConnSetStatus:
  299 Ns_ConnGetStatus:
  300 	New routines to set and get the HTTP status code to be used
  301 	in responses generated via Ns_ConnFlush. See also the
  302 	"status" option to the "ns_conn" command.
  303 
  304 Ns_ConnSetType:
  305 	Enhanced to more intelligently set the input and output
  306 	character encodings based on intended output charset. See
  307 	also the "ns_adp_mimetype" command and the "encoding" and
  308 	"urlencoding" options to the "ns_conn" command.
  309 
  310 Ns_ConnGetGzipFlag:
  311 Ns_ConnSetGzipFlag:
  312 Ns_ConnGetKeepAliveFlag:
  313 Ns_ConnSetKeepAliveFlag:
  314 	New utility routines to query or set the gzip and connection
  315 	keep-alive advisory flags.
  316 
  317 Ns_ConnFlush:
  318 	New general purpose routine to construct and return dynamically
  319 	generated, text-based responses, e.g., as generated from
  320 	ADP.  The routine incorporates much of the logic previously
  321 	embedded in the ADP interface including the ability to
  322 	automatically covert from UTF-8 to the output encoding
  323 	and/or gzip-compress the output. In addition, the routine
  324 	supports streaming responses, generating headers on the
  325 	first call followed by HTTP/1.1-style chunked-encoding
  326 	blocks on subsequent calls. See also the "ns_adp_flush" and
  327 	"ns_adp_close" commands.
  328 
  329 Ns_ConnFlushDirect:
  330 	Similar to Ns_ConnFlush but without any modification of the
  331 	given buffer, thus useful for non-text content.
  332 
  333 Ns_DevNull:
  334 	Returns a shared file descriptor open on /dev/null. This
  335 	fd is owned by the AOLserver process and must not be closed.
  336 
  337 Ns_FastPathOp:
  338 	New request callback to utilize the internal "fastpath"
  339 	caching-file response code. See also the new "ns_register_fastpath"
  340 	command.
  341 
  342 Ns_AdpRequestEx:
  343 	Extended version of Ns_AdpRequest with an additional Ns_Time
  344 	argument, specifying the timeout of optional execution
  345 	results caching.
  346 
  347 Ns_FindCharset
  348 	Locates the charset string within a full mimetype string,
  349 	e.g., locating "utf-8" in "text/html; charset=utf-8".
  350 
  351 Ns_Gzip:
  352 Ns_SetGzipProc:
  353 	Routine to gzip-compress a buffer if a compression function
  354 	has been registered with a call to Ns_SetGzipProc. The new
  355 	"nszlib" module registers such a callback.
  356 
  357 Ns_GetAllAddrByHost:
  358 	New routine to return all addresses for a given host.  See
  359 	also the "ns_addrbyhost -all" command.
  360 
  361 Ns_ParseRequestEx:
  362 	New extended version of Ns_ParseRequest which takes an
  363 	optional Tcl_Encoding argument specifying the charset to
  364 	decode the URL. The default is based on the context of the
  365 	request.
  366 
  367 Ns_TaskCreate:
  368 Ns_TaskEnqueue:
  369 Ns_TaskRun:
  370 Ns_TaskCancel:
  371 Ns_TaskWait:
  372 Ns_TaskCallback:
  373 Ns_TaskDone:
  374 Ns_TaskFree:
  375 Ns_CreateTaskQueue:
  376 Ns_DestroyTaskQueue:
  377 	New facility for event-based callback queues designed to
  378 	replace the legacy Ns_SockCallback interface.  As an example,
  379 	see the "ns_http" command which has been updated to use the
  380 	task interface.
  381 
  382 Ns_TclRegisterTrace:
  383 	New routine to registere callbacks at specific points in
  384 	the lifetime of a Tcl interpreter.  This routine is a
  385 	replacement for the legacy Ns_TclRegisterAt* routines. See
  386 	also the "trace", "runtraces", and "gettraces", options to
  387 	the "ns_ictl" command.
  388 
  389 Ns_QueueWait:
  390 	New interface to enable event-driven callbacks in the driver
  391 	thread before dispatching to pools for processing. This
  392 	allows drivers to augment data received from the client
  393 	(headers, request, content) with additional data fetched
  394 	over the network (likely stored in connection-local storage
  395 	via Ns_Cls). An example would be to add certain personalization
  396 	data received via a Web service. The benefit of this approach
  397 	is to accumulate additional data efficiently with driver-thread
  398 	based event callbacks instead of through potentially blocking
  399 	calls within connection threads.
  400 
  401 Ns_SockWaitEx:
  402 	New extended version of Ns_SockWait using higher-resolution
  403 	millisecond timeouts instead of 1-second resolution.
  404 
  405 ns_poll:
  406 	New wrapper around system-provided poll or an emulation
  407 	based on select when poll isn't available (Win32) or broken
  408 	(OS/X).
  409 
  410 Ns_LibInit:
  411 NsThreads_LibInit:
  412 	New routines to initialize the libnsd and libnsthread
  413 	libraries.  It is normally not necessary to call these
  414 	routines as the dynamic library entry points as well as the
  415 	Ns_Main and Ns_TclInit routines call these init routines
  416 	at startup.  They are available if necessary to initialize
  417 	specialized, statically linked applications.
  418 
  419 
  420 Additional Updates:
  421 ------------------
  422 
  423 * Enabled a global, pseudo-server, to support all Tcl commands
  424 outside the context of a virtual server, e.g., when the libnsd.so
  425 library is loaded into a Tcl shell.
  426 
  427 * Updated Tcl trace execution order to be FIFO and LIFO for init
  428 and cleanup callbacks respectively.
  429 
  430 * Moved more of the legacy (and generally confusing) Tcl interp
  431 duplication code from C into the the bootstrap init.tcl script
  432 utilizing the ns_ictl command.
  433 
  434 * ADP output buffer is now configurable with a maximum size (see
  435 the "ns_adp_ctl" command above). Upon overflow, the current output
  436 will be flushed to the client immediately in streaming mode to avoid
  437 consuming unbounded memory.
  438 
  439 * Restored AOLserver 3.x ADP parsing order, based on a patch from
  440 Alastair Young, where registered tags, <% ... %> scripts, and
  441 <script> ... </script> tags all have the same precedence.  The ADP
  442 parser now also properly handles nested sequences, e.g.:
  443 
  444 	<% ns_adp_puts [ns_adp_eval {<% ... %>} %>
  445 
  446 * Enhanced ADP error messaging capabilities which can be managed
  447 on a per-interp basis with ns_adp_ctl or configured by default,
  448 e.g.:
  449 
  450     ns_section "ns/server/server1/adp"
  451 	ns_param stricterror false  ;# Stop execution on error
  452 	ns_param detailerror true   ;# Include connection detail
  453 	ns_param displayerror false ;# Return error message to client
  454 
  455 When "detailerror" and/or "displayerror" are set, an error message
  456 similar to the following would be appended to the server log and/or
  457 included in the output sent to the client:
  458 
  459 This is an error.
  460     while executing
  461 "error "This is an error.""
  462     at line 4 of adp file "/aolserver/servers/server1/pages/error.adp"
  463     while processing connection #2:
  464         GET /error.adp HTTP/1.1
  465         Accept: */*
  466         Accept-Language: en
  467         Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
  468         User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en) ...
  469         Connection: keep-alive
  470         Host: 192.168.2.1:8000
  471 
  472 * New ADP execution tracing which can be enabled for a request with
  473 the ns_adp_ctl command or configured by default, e.g.:
  474 
  475     ns_section "ns/server/server1/adp"
  476 	ns_param trace false  ;# Enable text/script debug info.
  477 	ns_param tracesize 40 ;# Max chars of each chunk to log.
  478 
  479 The output of ADP tracing is somewhat limited and poorly formatted.
  480 
  481 * Communication driver threads are now dedicated to each instance
  482 of loaded drivers instead of a single thread multiplexing all I/O.
  483 This both simplified the code and enabled the new Ns_QueueWait API.
  484 
  485 * Communication driver threads now truncate instead of freeing I/O
  486 dstring buffers, avoiding repeated realloc calls between connections.
  487 * Re-ordered inits to ensure startup fds and log file are initialized
  488 first.
  489 
  490 * Communication drivers and connection data access routines have
  491 been updated to support large request content spooled to temp files
  492 instead of always copying to potentially large in-memory regions.
  493 See the Ns_ConnContentFd API for more details.
  494 
  495 * Updated to HTTP response version (1.0 or 1.1) to match client
  496 version.
  497 
  498 * Updated "ns_db" Tcl API to be a native Tcl_Obj command which
  499 should improve performance over the previous technique of multiple
  500 comparisons of command option strings.
  501 
  502 * Added debug driver configuration option which will enable logging
  503 of unusual I/O or protocol errors.
  504 
  505 * Simplified charset/encoding config for process-wide url decoding
  506 and per-virtual server defaults for dynamic Tcl requests.
  507 
  508 * Several new default file extension to mimetype mappings have been
  509 added in nsd/mimetype.c, e.g., .mp3 = audio/mpeg.
  510 
  511 * Created new default index.adp page which displays a number of
  512 AOLserver configuration settings.
  513 
  514 * The OS/X dynamic library loading code has been removed in favor
  515 of the more standard dlopen/dlsym API now provided by OS/X 10.4.
  516 
  517 
  518 Changes to the Build Process:
  519 ----------------------------
  520 
  521 * The Unix and Win32 build environments have been tightly integrated.
  522 Basically, the makefiles support both gmake on Unix and nmake on
  523 Win32 by including a platform-specific include/ns.mak created by
  524 the nsconfig.tcl Tcl script. As a side effect, several makefile
  525 variable names had to be changed, e.g., "LIB" on Unix is now "DLL"
  526 on Unix and Win32.  In addition, platform-independent Tcl scripts
  527 are used for file removal and copying, a further dependency on a
  528 working Tcl installation while building.
  529 
  530 * On Unix, backwards compatible Makefile.module and Makefile.global
  531 are provided which simply include the new ns.mak and map old variables
  532 to new names if present, e.g., "LIB" to "DLL".
  533 
  534 * On Win32, the legacy Visual Studio build directories have been
  535 removed entirely has their maintenance proved irritating and
  536 complicated.
  537 
  538 * A new util/nsinstall-man.sh script installs man pages and also
  539 optionally converts the pages to HTML using groff on Unix.
  540 
  541 * Several new makefile install directives have been added, including
  542 install-tcl, install-skel, install-util, install-bins, and install-docs.
  543 
  544 * Added new stubs and makefile targets to support building a library
  545 or module in a consistent way which separates the library code
  546 installed as both a static archive and dynamic lib from the library
  547 and/or module init calls.
  548 
  549 * Added mynsd example directory showing how to build a custom static
  550 linked nsd binary.  The previous conditional startup code and
  551 makefile support has been removed.
  552 
  553 * Compiling for 64-bit is known to work in general on Unix. It is
  554 unclear if AOLserver has ever been successfully compiled on 64-bit
  555 Windows and there is a known issue with the Win32 thread interface
  556 which would appear to make this not possible (the thread exit status
  557 pointer is cast to an smaller-sized integer). In addition, while
  558 AOLserver runs on 64-bit Unix systems, the interfaces have not been
  559 scrubbed and updated to support all 64-bit features, e.g., large
  560 file offsets. A more extensive 64-bit certification effort is planned
  561 for the next release.
  562 
  563 * Applied patches from Stephen Deasey for better compile time error
  564 checking, e.g., now checking printf-style arguments in Ns_DStringPrintf.
  565 
  566 
  567 Bug Fixes:
  568 ---------
  569 
  570 * Fixed crash bug caused by certain command sequences generated
  571 when using the "ns_chan" Tcl API (SF #1094480).
  572 
  573 * Fixed crash bug in channel tables cleanup and closing code.
  574 
  575 * Fixed crash bug loading nsdb outside a virtual server.
  576 
  577 * Fixed invalid return code in Ns_ConnReadLine().
  578 
  579 * Updated simple HTML response routines (e.g., Ns_ConnReturnNotice,
  580 ns_returnnotice) to properly encode output from UTF-8.
  581 
  582 * Fixed bug where log level "dev" wasn't properly supported.
  583 
  584 * Switched to strtol() from atoi() for improved thread safety.
  585 
  586 * Added check for Darwin (OS/X) to disable detection of poll() which
  587 appears broken, using the poll() emulation code based on select()
  588 instead.
  589 
  590 * Fixed infinite recursion crash bug in GetAddr().
  591 
  592 * Removed minor memory leak when no CGI mappings are present.
  593 
  594 * Removed most panics when compiling on 64 bit machines.
  595 
  596 * A thread race condition which could lead to a crash when using
  597 "ns_server threads" has been fixed.
  598 
  599 
  600 Known Issues:
  601 ------------
  602 
  603 * Documentation remains incomplete. We are still missing useful
  604 overview and getting started materials and, while significant
  605 progress has been made, most of the man pages are still empty stubs.
  606 
  607 * Loading libnsd into a tclsh and then creating new threads with
  608 the ns_thread command will result in a crash when those threads
  609 exit. The issues has to do with finalization of the async-cancel
  610 context used to support the new "ns_ictl cancel" feature.  This bug
  611 is not present when using the "nstclsh" binary.
  612 
  613 * The Win32 port does not support all of the new features of temp-file
  614 based request content. In particular, while large requests will
  615 spool to a temp file, a subsequent call to Ns_ConnContent will fail
  616 as the corresponding file mapping code has not yet been written.
  617 
  618 * The build environment in general is annoying. As described, there
  619 was an effort in this release to support Unix and Win32 from the
  620 same makefiles which, while a bit clever, likely irritated more
  621 Unix developers than excited Win32 developers. In addition, the
  622 Unix configure script is weak, overly reliant on the context from
  623 a properly built Tcl installation, and the makefiles rely too much
  624 on GNU make features.  Creating a proper Unix configure script which
  625 creates proper Makefiles is planned for the next release along with
  626 a possible shift in the Win32 strategy (see next note).
  627 
  628 * AOLserver does not compile with the latest Visual C++ 2005 from
  629 Microsoft.  While some of the new safety and security features in
  630 Visual C++ are interesting and the debugger has always been excellent,
  631 the complexity of Visual Studio and incompatibility of the Microsoft
  632 command line tools with Unix equivalents makes supporting Win32
  633 increasingly irritating.  As such, we will be exploring a shift to
  634 Msys-based Win32 build in the next release, enabling us to utilize
  635 our Unix-based development approach while still allowing AOLserver
  636 to run against native Win32 libraries.  Feedback is appreciated.
  637 For now, AOLserver can be compiled on Win32 as described in the
  638 README file using the previous release of Visual C++.