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<blockquote>
<strong>Warning:</strong> This document has not been updated
to take into account changes made in the 2.0 version of the
Apache HTTP Server. Some of the information may still be
relevant, but please use it with care.
</blockquote>
<h1 align="center">Apache API notes</h1>
These are some notes on the Apache API and the data structures
you have to deal with, <em>etc.</em> They are not yet nearly
complete, but hopefully, they will help you get your bearings.
Keep in mind that the API is still subject to change as we gain
experience with it. (See the TODO file for what <em>might</em>
be coming). However, it will be easy to adapt modules to any
changes that are made. (We have more modules to adapt than you
do).
<p>A few notes on general pedagogical style here. In the
interest of conciseness, all structure declarations here are
incomplete --- the real ones have more slots that I'm not
telling you about. For the most part, these are reserved to one
component of the server core or another, and should be altered
by modules with caution. However, in some cases, they really
are things I just haven't gotten around to yet. Welcome to the
bleeding edge.</p>
<p>Finally, here's an outline, to give you some bare idea of
what's coming up, and in what order:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="#basics">Basic concepts.</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#HMR">Handlers, Modules, and
Requests</a></li>
<li><a href="#moduletour">A brief tour of a
module</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#handlers">How handlers work</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#req_tour">A brief tour of the
<code>request_rec</code></a></li>
<li><a href="#req_orig">Where request_rec structures come
from</a></li>
<li><a href="#req_return">Handling requests, declining,
and returning error codes</a></li>
<li><a href="#resp_handlers">Special considerations for
response handlers</a></li>
<li><a href="#auth_handlers">Special considerations for
authentication handlers</a></li>
<li><a href="#log_handlers">Special considerations for
logging handlers</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#pools">Resource allocation and resource
pools</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#config">Configuration, commands and the like</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#per-dir">Per-directory configuration
structures</a></li>
<li><a href="#commands">Command handling</a></li>
<li><a href="#servconf">Side notes --- per-server
configuration, virtual servers, <em>etc</em>.</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2><a id="basics" name="basics">Basic concepts.</a></h2>
We begin with an overview of the basic concepts behind the API,
and how they are manifested in the code.
<h3><a id="HMR" name="HMR">Handlers, Modules, and
Requests</a></h3>
Apache breaks down request handling into a series of steps,
more or less the same way the Netscape server API does
(although this API has a few more stages than NetSite does, as
hooks for stuff I thought might be useful in the future). These
are:
<ul>
<li>URI -&gt; Filename translation</li>
<li>Auth ID checking [is the user who they say they
are?]</li>
<li>Auth access checking [is the user authorized
<em>here</em>?]</li>
<li>Access checking other than auth</li>
<li>Determining MIME type of the object requested</li>
<li>`Fixups' --- there aren't any of these yet, but the phase
is intended as a hook for possible extensions like
<code>SetEnv</code>, which don't really fit well
elsewhere.</li>
<li>Actually sending a response back to the client.</li>
<li>Logging the request</li>
</ul>
These phases are handled by looking at each of a succession of
<em>modules</em>, looking to see if each of them has a handler
for the phase, and attempting invoking it if so. The handler
can typically do one of three things:
<ul>
<li><em>Handle</em> the request, and indicate that it has
done so by returning the magic constant <code>OK</code>.</li>
<li><em>Decline</em> to handle the request, by returning the
magic integer constant <code>DECLINED</code>. In this case,
the server behaves in all respects as if the handler simply
hadn't been there.</li>
<li>Signal an error, by returning one of the HTTP error
codes. This terminates normal handling of the request,
although an ErrorDocument may be invoked to try to mop up,
and it will be logged in any case.</li>
</ul>
Most phases are terminated by the first module that handles
them; however, for logging, `fixups', and non-access
authentication checking, all handlers always run (barring an
error). Also, the response phase is unique in that modules may
declare multiple handlers for it, via a dispatch table keyed on
the MIME type of the requested object. Modules may declare a
response-phase handler which can handle <em>any</em> request,
by giving it the key <code>*/*</code> (<em>i.e.</em>, a
wildcard MIME type specification). However, wildcard handlers
are only invoked if the server has already tried and failed to
find a more specific response handler for the MIME type of the
requested object (either none existed, or they all declined).
<p>The handlers themselves are functions of one argument (a
<code>request_rec</code> structure. vide infra), which returns
an integer, as above.</p>
<h3><a id="moduletour" name="moduletour">A brief tour of a
module</a></h3>
At this point, we need to explain the structure of a module.
Our candidate will be one of the messier ones, the CGI module
--- this handles both CGI scripts and the
<code>ScriptAlias</code> config file command. It's actually a
great deal more complicated than most modules, but if we're
going to have only one example, it might as well be the one
with its fingers in every place.
<p>Let's begin with handlers. In order to handle the CGI
scripts, the module declares a response handler for them.
Because of <code>ScriptAlias</code>, it also has handlers for
the name translation phase (to recognize
<code>ScriptAlias</code>ed URIs), the type-checking phase (any
<code>ScriptAlias</code>ed request is typed as a CGI
script).</p>
<p>The module needs to maintain some per (virtual) server
information, namely, the <code>ScriptAlias</code>es in effect;
the module structure therefore contains pointers to a functions
which builds these structures, and to another which combines
two of them (in case the main server and a virtual server both
have <code>ScriptAlias</code>es declared).</p>
<p>Finally, this module contains code to handle the
<code>ScriptAlias</code> command itself. This particular module
only declares one command, but there could be more, so modules
have <em>command tables</em> which declare their commands, and
describe where they are permitted, and how they are to be
invoked.</p>
<p>A final note on the declared types of the arguments of some
of these commands: a <code>pool</code> is a pointer to a
<em>resource pool</em> structure; these are used by the server
to keep track of the memory which has been allocated, files
opened, <em>etc.</em>, either to service a particular request,
or to handle the process of configuring itself. That way, when
the request is over (or, for the configuration pool, when the
server is restarting), the memory can be freed, and the files
closed, <em>en masse</em>, without anyone having to write
explicit code to track them all down and dispose of them. Also,
a <code>cmd_parms</code> structure contains various information
about the config file being read, and other status information,
which is sometimes of use to the function which processes a
config-file command (such as <code>ScriptAlias</code>). With no
further ado, the module itself:</p>
<pre>
/* Declarations of handlers. */
int translate_scriptalias (request_rec *);
int type_scriptalias (request_rec *);
int cgi_handler (request_rec *);
/* Subsidiary dispatch table for response-phase handlers, by MIME type */
handler_rec cgi_handlers[] = {
{ "application/x-httpd-cgi", cgi_handler },
{ NULL }
};
/* Declarations of routines to manipulate the module's configuration
* info. Note that these are returned, and passed in, as void *'s;
* the server core keeps track of them, but it doesn't, and can't,
* know their internal structure.
*/
void *make_cgi_server_config (pool *);
void *merge_cgi_server_config (pool *, void *, void *);
/* Declarations of routines to handle config-file commands */
extern char *script_alias(cmd_parms *, void *per_dir_config, char *fake,
char *real);
command_rec cgi_cmds[] = {
{ "ScriptAlias", script_alias, NULL, RSRC_CONF, TAKE2,
"a fakename and a realname"},
{ NULL }
};
module cgi_module = {
STANDARD_MODULE_STUFF,
NULL, /* initializer */
NULL, /* dir config creator */
NULL, /* dir merger --- default is to override */
make_cgi_server_config, /* server config */
merge_cgi_server_config, /* merge server config */
cgi_cmds, /* command table */
cgi_handlers, /* handlers */
translate_scriptalias, /* filename translation */
NULL, /* check_user_id */
NULL, /* check auth */
NULL, /* check access */
type_scriptalias, /* type_checker */
NULL, /* fixups */
NULL, /* logger */
NULL /* header parser */
};
</pre>
<h2><a id="handlers" name="handlers">How handlers work</a></h2>
The sole argument to handlers is a <code>request_rec</code>
structure. This structure describes a particular request which
has been made to the server, on behalf of a client. In most
cases, each connection to the client generates only one
<code>request_rec</code> structure.
<h3><a id="req_tour" name="req_tour">A brief tour of the
<code>request_rec</code></a></h3>
The <code>request_rec</code> contains pointers to a resource
pool which will be cleared when the server is finished handling
the request; to structures containing per-server and
per-connection information, and most importantly, information
on the request itself.
<p>The most important such information is a small set of
character strings describing attributes of the object being
requested, including its URI, filename, content-type and
content-encoding (these being filled in by the translation and
type-check handlers which handle the request,
respectively).</p>
<p>Other commonly used data items are tables giving the MIME
headers on the client's original request, MIME headers to be
sent back with the response (which modules can add to at will),
and environment variables for any subprocesses which are
spawned off in the course of servicing the request. These
tables are manipulated using the <code>ap_table_get</code> and
<code>ap_table_set</code> routines.</p>
<blockquote>
Note that the <samp>Content-type</samp> header value
<em>cannot</em> be set by module content-handlers using the
<samp>ap_table_*()</samp> routines. Rather, it is set by
pointing the <samp>content_type</samp> field in the
<samp>request_rec</samp> structure to an appropriate string.
<em>E.g.</em>,
<pre>
r-&gt;content_type = "text/html";
</pre>
</blockquote>
Finally, there are pointers to two data structures which, in
turn, point to per-module configuration structures.
Specifically, these hold pointers to the data structures which
the module has built to describe the way it has been configured
to operate in a given directory (via <code>.htaccess</code>
files or <code>&lt;Directory&gt;</code> sections), for private
data it has built in the course of servicing the request (so
modules' handlers for one phase can pass `notes' to their
handlers for other phases). There is another such configuration
vector in the <code>server_rec</code> data structure pointed to
by the <code>request_rec</code>, which contains per (virtual)
server configuration data.
<p>Here is an abridged declaration, giving the fields most
commonly used:</p>
<pre>
struct request_rec {
pool *pool;
conn_rec *connection;
server_rec *server;
/* What object is being requested */
char *uri;
char *filename;
char *path_info;
char *args; /* QUERY_ARGS, if any */
struct stat finfo; /* Set by server core;
* st_mode set to zero if no such file */
char *content_type;
char *content_encoding;
/* MIME header environments, in and out. Also, an array containing
* environment variables to be passed to subprocesses, so people can
* write modules to add to that environment.
*
* The difference between headers_out and err_headers_out is that
* the latter are printed even on error, and persist across internal
* redirects (so the headers printed for ErrorDocument handlers will
* have them).
*/
table *headers_in;
table *headers_out;
table *err_headers_out;
table *subprocess_env;
/* Info about the request itself... */
int header_only; /* HEAD request, as opposed to GET */
char *protocol; /* Protocol, as given to us, or HTTP/0.9 */
char *method; /* GET, HEAD, POST, <em>etc.</em> */
int method_number; /* M_GET, M_POST, <em>etc.</em> */
/* Info for logging */
char *the_request;
int bytes_sent;
/* A flag which modules can set, to indicate that the data being
* returned is volatile, and clients should be told not to cache it.
*/
int no_cache;
/* Various other config info which may change with .htaccess files
* These are config vectors, with one void* pointer for each module
* (the thing pointed to being the module's business).
*/
void *per_dir_config; /* Options set in config files, <em>etc.</em> */
void *request_config; /* Notes on *this* request */
};
</pre>
<h3><a id="req_orig" name="req_orig">Where request_rec
structures come from</a></h3>
Most <code>request_rec</code> structures are built by reading
an HTTP request from a client, and filling in the fields.
However, there are a few exceptions:
<ul>
<li>If the request is to an imagemap, a type map
(<em>i.e.</em>, a <code>*.var</code> file), or a CGI script
which returned a local `Location:', then the resource which
the user requested is going to be ultimately located by some
URI other than what the client originally supplied. In this
case, the server does an <em>internal redirect</em>,
constructing a new <code>request_rec</code> for the new URI,
and processing it almost exactly as if the client had
requested the new URI directly.</li>
<li>If some handler signaled an error, and an
<code>ErrorDocument</code> is in scope, the same internal
redirect machinery comes into play.</li>
<li>
Finally, a handler occasionally needs to investigate `what
would happen if' some other request were run. For instance,
the directory indexing module needs to know what MIME type
would be assigned to a request for each directory entry, in
order to figure out what icon to use.
<p>Such handlers can construct a <em>sub-request</em>,
using the functions <code>ap_sub_req_lookup_file</code>,
<code>ap_sub_req_lookup_uri</code>, and
<code>ap_sub_req_method_uri</code>; these construct a new
<code>request_rec</code> structure and processes it as you
would expect, up to but not including the point of actually
sending a response. (These functions skip over the access
checks if the sub-request is for a file in the same
directory as the original request).</p>
<p>(Server-side includes work by building sub-requests and
then actually invoking the response handler for them, via
the function <code>ap_run_sub_req</code>).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a id="req_return" name="req_return">Handling requests,
declining, and returning error codes</a></h3>
As discussed above, each handler, when invoked to handle a
particular <code>request_rec</code>, has to return an
<code>int</code> to indicate what happened. That can either be
<ul>
<li>OK --- the request was handled successfully. This may or
may not terminate the phase.</li>
<li>DECLINED --- no erroneous condition exists, but the
module declines to handle the phase; the server tries to find
another.</li>
<li>an HTTP error code, which aborts handling of the
request.</li>
</ul>
Note that if the error code returned is <code>REDIRECT</code>,
then the module should put a <code>Location</code> in the
request's <code>headers_out</code>, to indicate where the
client should be redirected <em>to</em>.
<h3><a id="resp_handlers" name="resp_handlers">Special
considerations for response handlers</a></h3>
Handlers for most phases do their work by simply setting a few
fields in the <code>request_rec</code> structure (or, in the
case of access checkers, simply by returning the correct error
code). However, response handlers have to actually send a
request back to the client.
<p>They should begin by sending an HTTP response header, using
the function <code>ap_send_http_header</code>. (You don't have
to do anything special to skip sending the header for HTTP/0.9
requests; the function figures out on its own that it shouldn't
do anything). If the request is marked
<code>header_only</code>, that's all they should do; they
should return after that, without attempting any further
output.</p>
<p>Otherwise, they should produce a request body which responds
to the client as appropriate. The primitives for this are
<code>ap_rputc</code> and <code>ap_rprintf</code>, for
internally generated output, and <code>ap_send_fd</code>, to
copy the contents of some <code>FILE *</code> straight to the
client.</p>
<p>At this point, you should more or less understand the
following piece of code, which is the handler which handles
<code>GET</code> requests which have no more specific handler;
it also shows how conditional <code>GET</code>s can be handled,
if it's desirable to do so in a particular response handler ---
<code>ap_set_last_modified</code> checks against the
<code>If-modified-since</code> value supplied by the client, if
any, and returns an appropriate code (which will, if nonzero,
be USE_LOCAL_COPY). No similar considerations apply for
<code>ap_set_content_length</code>, but it returns an error
code for symmetry.</p>
<pre>
int default_handler (request_rec *r)
{
int errstatus;
FILE *f;
if (r-&gt;method_number != M_GET) return DECLINED;
if (r-&gt;finfo.st_mode == 0) return NOT_FOUND;
if ((errstatus = ap_set_content_length (r, r-&gt;finfo.st_size))
|| (errstatus = ap_set_last_modified (r, r-&gt;finfo.st_mtime)))
return errstatus;
f = fopen (r-&gt;filename, "r");
if (f == NULL) {
log_reason("file permissions deny server access",
r-&gt;filename, r);
return FORBIDDEN;
}
register_timeout ("send", r);
ap_send_http_header (r);
if (!r-&gt;header_only) send_fd (f, r);
ap_pfclose (r-&gt;pool, f);
return OK;
}
</pre>
Finally, if all of this is too much of a challenge, there are a
few ways out of it. First off, as shown above, a response
handler which has not yet produced any output can simply return
an error code, in which case the server will automatically
produce an error response. Secondly, it can punt to some other
handler by invoking <code>ap_internal_redirect</code>, which is
how the internal redirection machinery discussed above is
invoked. A response handler which has internally redirected
should always return <code>OK</code>.
<p>(Invoking <code>ap_internal_redirect</code> from handlers
which are <em>not</em> response handlers will lead to serious
confusion).</p>
<h3><a id="auth_handlers" name="auth_handlers">Special
considerations for authentication handlers</a></h3>
Stuff that should be discussed here in detail:
<ul>
<li>Authentication-phase handlers not invoked unless auth is
configured for the directory.</li>
<li>Common auth configuration stored in the core per-dir
configuration; it has accessors <code>ap_auth_type</code>,
<code>ap_auth_name</code>, and <code>ap_requires</code>.</li>
<li>Common routines, to handle the protocol end of things, at
least for HTTP basic authentication
(<code>ap_get_basic_auth_pw</code>, which sets the
<code>connection-&gt;user</code> structure field
automatically, and <code>ap_note_basic_auth_failure</code>,
which arranges for the proper <code>WWW-Authenticate:</code>
header to be sent back).</li>
</ul>
<h3><a id="log_handlers" name="log_handlers">Special
considerations for logging handlers</a></h3>
When a request has internally redirected, there is the question
of what to log. Apache handles this by bundling the entire
chain of redirects into a list of <code>request_rec</code>
structures which are threaded through the
<code>r-&gt;prev</code> and <code>r-&gt;next</code> pointers.
The <code>request_rec</code> which is passed to the logging
handlers in such cases is the one which was originally built
for the initial request from the client; note that the
bytes_sent field will only be correct in the last request in
the chain (the one for which a response was actually sent).
<h2><a id="pools" name="pools">Resource allocation and resource
pools</a></h2>
<p>One of the problems of writing and designing a server-pool
server is that of preventing leakage, that is, allocating
resources (memory, open files, <em>etc.</em>), without
subsequently releasing them. The resource pool machinery is
designed to make it easy to prevent this from happening, by
allowing resource to be allocated in such a way that they are
<em>automatically</em> released when the server is done with
them.</p>
<p>The way this works is as follows: the memory which is
allocated, file opened, <em>etc.</em>, to deal with a
particular request are tied to a <em>resource pool</em> which
is allocated for the request. The pool is a data structure
which itself tracks the resources in question.</p>
<p>When the request has been processed, the pool is
<em>cleared</em>. At that point, all the memory associated with
it is released for reuse, all files associated with it are
closed, and any other clean-up functions which are associated
with the pool are run. When this is over, we can be confident
that all the resource tied to the pool have been released, and
that none of them have leaked.</p>
<p>Server restarts, and allocation of memory and resources for
per-server configuration, are handled in a similar way. There
is a <em>configuration pool</em>, which keeps track of
resources which were allocated while reading the server
configuration files, and handling the commands therein (for
instance, the memory that was allocated for per-server module
configuration, log files and other files that were opened, and
so forth). When the server restarts, and has to reread the
configuration files, the configuration pool is cleared, and so
the memory and file descriptors which were taken up by reading
them the last time are made available for reuse.</p>
<p>It should be noted that use of the pool machinery isn't
generally obligatory, except for situations like logging
handlers, where you really need to register cleanups to make
sure that the log file gets closed when the server restarts
(this is most easily done by using the function <code><a
href="#pool-files">ap_pfopen</a></code>, which also arranges
for the underlying file descriptor to be closed before any
child processes, such as for CGI scripts, are
<code>exec</code>ed), or in case you are using the timeout
machinery (which isn't yet even documented here). However,
there are two benefits to using it: resources allocated to a
pool never leak (even if you allocate a scratch string, and
just forget about it); also, for memory allocation,
<code>ap_palloc</code> is generally faster than
<code>malloc</code>.</p>
<p>We begin here by describing how memory is allocated to
pools, and then discuss how other resources are tracked by the
resource pool machinery.</p>
<h3>Allocation of memory in pools</h3>
<p>Memory is allocated to pools by calling the function
<code>ap_palloc</code>, which takes two arguments, one being a
pointer to a resource pool structure, and the other being the
amount of memory to allocate (in <code>char</code>s). Within
handlers for handling requests, the most common way of getting
a resource pool structure is by looking at the
<code>pool</code> slot of the relevant
<code>request_rec</code>; hence the repeated appearance of the
following idiom in module code:</p>
<pre>
int my_handler(request_rec *r)
{
struct my_structure *foo;
...
foo = (foo *)ap_palloc (r-&gt;pool, sizeof(my_structure));
}
</pre>
<p>Note that <em>there is no <code>ap_pfree</code></em> ---
<code>ap_palloc</code>ed memory is freed only when the
associated resource pool is cleared. This means that
<code>ap_palloc</code> does not have to do as much accounting
as <code>malloc()</code>; all it does in the typical case is to
round up the size, bump a pointer, and do a range check.</p>
<p>(It also raises the possibility that heavy use of
<code>ap_palloc</code> could cause a server process to grow
excessively large. There are two ways to deal with this, which
are dealt with below; briefly, you can use <code>malloc</code>,
and try to be sure that all of the memory gets explicitly
<code>free</code>d, or you can allocate a sub-pool of the main
pool, allocate your memory in the sub-pool, and clear it out
periodically. The latter technique is discussed in the section
on sub-pools below, and is used in the directory-indexing code,
in order to avoid excessive storage allocation when listing
directories with thousands of files).</p>
<h3>Allocating initialized memory</h3>
<p>There are functions which allocate initialized memory, and
are frequently useful. The function <code>ap_pcalloc</code> has
the same interface as <code>ap_palloc</code>, but clears out
the memory it allocates before it returns it. The function
<code>ap_pstrdup</code> takes a resource pool and a <code>char
*</code> as arguments, and allocates memory for a copy of the
string the pointer points to, returning a pointer to the copy.
Finally <code>ap_pstrcat</code> is a varargs-style function,
which takes a pointer to a resource pool, and at least two
<code>char *</code> arguments, the last of which must be
<code>NULL</code>. It allocates enough memory to fit copies of
each of the strings, as a unit; for instance:</p>
<pre>
ap_pstrcat (r-&gt;pool, "foo", "/", "bar", NULL);
</pre>
<p>returns a pointer to 8 bytes worth of memory, initialized to
<code>"foo/bar"</code>.</p>
<h3><a id="pools-used" name="pools-used">Commonly-used pools in
the Apache Web server</a></h3>
<p>A pool is really defined by its lifetime more than anything
else. There are some static pools in http_main which are passed
to various non-http_main functions as arguments at opportune
times. Here they are:</p>
<dl compact="compact">
<dt>permanent_pool</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>never passed to anything else, this is the ancestor
of all pools</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>pconf</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>subpool of permanent_pool</li>
<li>created at the beginning of a config "cycle"; exists
until the server is terminated or restarts; passed to all
config-time routines, either via cmd-&gt;pool, or as the
"pool *p" argument on those which don't take pools</li>
<li>passed to the module init() functions</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>ptemp</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>sorry I lie, this pool isn't called this currently in
1.3, I renamed it this in my pthreads development. I'm
referring to the use of ptrans in the parent... contrast
this with the later definition of ptrans in the
child.</li>
<li>subpool of permanent_pool</li>
<li>created at the beginning of a config "cycle"; exists
until the end of config parsing; passed to config-time
routines <em>via</em> cmd-&gt;temp_pool. Somewhat of a
"bastard child" because it isn't available everywhere.
Used for temporary scratch space which may be needed by
some config routines but which is deleted at the end of
config.</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>pchild</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>subpool of permanent_pool</li>
<li>created when a child is spawned (or a thread is
created); lives until that child (thread) is
destroyed</li>
<li>passed to the module child_init functions</li>
<li>destruction happens right after the child_exit
functions are called... (which may explain why I think
child_exit is redundant and unneeded)</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>ptrans</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>should be a subpool of pchild, but currently is a
subpool of permanent_pool, see above</li>
<li>cleared by the child before going into the accept()
loop to receive a connection</li>
<li>used as connection-&gt;pool</li>
</ul>
</dd>
<dt>r-&gt;pool</dt>
<dd>
<ul>
<li>for the main request this is a subpool of
connection-&gt;pool; for subrequests it is a subpool of
the parent request's pool.</li>
<li>exists until the end of the request (<em>i.e.</em>,
ap_destroy_sub_req, or in child_main after
process_request has finished)</li>
<li>note that r itself is allocated from r-&gt;pool;
<em>i.e.</em>, r-&gt;pool is first created and then r is
the first thing palloc()d from it</li>
</ul>
</dd>
</dl>
<p>For almost everything folks do, r-&gt;pool is the pool to
use. But you can see how other lifetimes, such as pchild, are
useful to some modules... such as modules that need to open a
database connection once per child, and wish to clean it up
when the child dies.</p>
<p>You can also see how some bugs have manifested themself,
such as setting connection-&gt;user to a value from r-&gt;pool
-- in this case connection exists for the lifetime of ptrans,
which is longer than r-&gt;pool (especially if r-&gt;pool is a
subrequest!). So the correct thing to do is to allocate from
connection-&gt;pool.</p>
<p>And there was another interesting bug in
mod_include/mod_cgi. You'll see in those that they do this test
to decide if they should use r-&gt;pool or r-&gt;main-&gt;pool.
In this case the resource that they are registering for cleanup
is a child process. If it were registered in r-&gt;pool, then
the code would wait() for the child when the subrequest
finishes. With mod_include this could be any old #include, and
the delay can be up to 3 seconds... and happened quite
frequently. Instead the subprocess is registered in
r-&gt;main-&gt;pool which causes it to be cleaned up when the
entire request is done -- <em>i.e.</em>, after the output has
been sent to the client and logging has happened.</p>
<h3><a id="pool-files" name="pool-files">Tracking open files,
etc.</a></h3>
<p>As indicated above, resource pools are also used to track
other sorts of resources besides memory. The most common are
open files. The routine which is typically used for this is
<code>ap_pfopen</code>, which takes a resource pool and two
strings as arguments; the strings are the same as the typical
arguments to <code>fopen</code>, <em>e.g.</em>,</p>
<pre>
...
FILE *f = ap_pfopen (r-&gt;pool, r-&gt;filename, "r");
if (f == NULL) { ... } else { ... }
</pre>
<p>There is also a <code>ap_popenf</code> routine, which
parallels the lower-level <code>open</code> system call. Both
of these routines arrange for the file to be closed when the
resource pool in question is cleared.</p>
<p>Unlike the case for memory, there <em>are</em> functions to
close files allocated with <code>ap_pfopen</code>, and
<code>ap_popenf</code>, namely <code>ap_pfclose</code> and
<code>ap_pclosef</code>. (This is because, on many systems, the
number of files which a single process can have open is quite
limited). It is important to use these functions to close files
allocated with <code>ap_pfopen</code> and
<code>ap_popenf</code>, since to do otherwise could cause fatal
errors on systems such as Linux, which react badly if the same
<code>FILE*</code> is closed more than once.</p>
<p>(Using the <code>close</code> functions is not mandatory,
since the file will eventually be closed regardless, but you
should consider it in cases where your module is opening, or
could open, a lot of files).</p>
<h3>Other sorts of resources --- cleanup functions</h3>
<blockquote>
More text goes here. Describe the the cleanup primitives in
terms of which the file stuff is implemented; also,
<code>spawn_process</code>.
</blockquote>
<p>Pool cleanups live until clear_pool() is called:
clear_pool(a) recursively calls destroy_pool() on all subpools
of a; then calls all the cleanups for a; then releases all the
memory for a. destroy_pool(a) calls clear_pool(a) and then
releases the pool structure itself. <em>i.e.</em>,
clear_pool(a) doesn't delete a, it just frees up all the
resources and you can start using it again immediately.</p>
<h3>Fine control --- creating and dealing with sub-pools, with
a note on sub-requests</h3>
On rare occasions, too-free use of <code>ap_palloc()</code> and
the associated primitives may result in undesirably profligate
resource allocation. You can deal with such a case by creating
a <em>sub-pool</em>, allocating within the sub-pool rather than
the main pool, and clearing or destroying the sub-pool, which
releases the resources which were associated with it. (This
really <em>is</em> a rare situation; the only case in which it
comes up in the standard module set is in case of listing
directories, and then only with <em>very</em> large
directories. Unnecessary use of the primitives discussed here
can hair up your code quite a bit, with very little gain).
<p>The primitive for creating a sub-pool is
<code>ap_make_sub_pool</code>, which takes another pool (the
parent pool) as an argument. When the main pool is cleared, the
sub-pool will be destroyed. The sub-pool may also be cleared or
destroyed at any time, by calling the functions
<code>ap_clear_pool</code> and <code>ap_destroy_pool</code>,
respectively. (The difference is that
<code>ap_clear_pool</code> frees resources associated with the
pool, while <code>ap_destroy_pool</code> also deallocates the
pool itself. In the former case, you can allocate new resources
within the pool, and clear it again, and so forth; in the
latter case, it is simply gone).</p>
<p>One final note --- sub-requests have their own resource
pools, which are sub-pools of the resource pool for the main
request. The polite way to reclaim the resources associated
with a sub request which you have allocated (using the
<code>ap_sub_req_...</code> functions) is
<code>ap_destroy_sub_req</code>, which frees the resource pool.
Before calling this function, be sure to copy anything that you
care about which might be allocated in the sub-request's
resource pool into someplace a little less volatile (for
instance, the filename in its <code>request_rec</code>
structure).</p>
<p>(Again, under most circumstances, you shouldn't feel obliged
to call this function; only 2K of memory or so are allocated
for a typical sub request, and it will be freed anyway when the
main request pool is cleared. It is only when you are
allocating many, many sub-requests for a single main request
that you should seriously consider the
<code>ap_destroy_...</code> functions).</p>
<h2><a id="config" name="config">Configuration, commands and
the like</a></h2>
One of the design goals for this server was to maintain
external compatibility with the NCSA 1.3 server --- that is, to
read the same configuration files, to process all the
directives therein correctly, and in general to be a drop-in
replacement for NCSA. On the other hand, another design goal
was to move as much of the server's functionality into modules
which have as little as possible to do with the monolithic
server core. The only way to reconcile these goals is to move
the handling of most commands from the central server into the
modules.
<p>However, just giving the modules command tables is not
enough to divorce them completely from the server core. The
server has to remember the commands in order to act on them
later. That involves maintaining data which is private to the
modules, and which can be either per-server, or per-directory.
Most things are per-directory, including in particular access
control and authorization information, but also information on
how to determine file types from suffixes, which can be
modified by <code>AddType</code> and <code>DefaultType</code>
directives, and so forth. In general, the governing philosophy
is that anything which <em>can</em> be made configurable by
directory should be; per-server information is generally used
in the standard set of modules for information like
<code>Alias</code>es and <code>Redirect</code>s which come into
play before the request is tied to a particular place in the
underlying file system.</p>
<p>Another requirement for emulating the NCSA server is being
able to handle the per-directory configuration files, generally
called <code>.htaccess</code> files, though even in the NCSA
server they can contain directives which have nothing at all to
do with access control. Accordingly, after URI -&gt; filename
translation, but before performing any other phase, the server
walks down the directory hierarchy of the underlying
filesystem, following the translated pathname, to read any
<code>.htaccess</code> files which might be present. The
information which is read in then has to be <em>merged</em>
with the applicable information from the server's own config
files (either from the <code>&lt;Directory&gt;</code> sections
in <code>access.conf</code>, or from defaults in
<code>srm.conf</code>, which actually behaves for most purposes
almost exactly like <code>&lt;Directory /&gt;</code>).</p>
<p>Finally, after having served a request which involved
reading <code>.htaccess</code> files, we need to discard the
storage allocated for handling them. That is solved the same
way it is solved wherever else similar problems come up, by
tying those structures to the per-transaction resource
pool.</p>
<h3><a id="per-dir" name="per-dir">Per-directory configuration
structures</a></h3>
Let's look out how all of this plays out in
<code>mod_mime.c</code>, which defines the file typing handler
which emulates the NCSA server's behavior of determining file
types from suffixes. What we'll be looking at, here, is the
code which implements the <code>AddType</code> and
<code>AddEncoding</code> commands. These commands can appear in
<code>.htaccess</code> files, so they must be handled in the
module's private per-directory data, which in fact, consists of
two separate <code>table</code>s for MIME types and encoding
information, and is declared as follows:
<pre>
typedef struct {
table *forced_types; /* Additional AddTyped stuff */
table *encoding_types; /* Added with AddEncoding... */
} mime_dir_config;
</pre>
When the server is reading a configuration file, or
<code>&lt;Directory&gt;</code> section, which includes one of
the MIME module's commands, it needs to create a
<code>mime_dir_config</code> structure, so those commands have
something to act on. It does this by invoking the function it
finds in the module's `create per-dir config slot', with two
arguments: the name of the directory to which this
configuration information applies (or <code>NULL</code> for
<code>srm.conf</code>), and a pointer to a resource pool in
which the allocation should happen.
<p>(If we are reading a <code>.htaccess</code> file, that
resource pool is the per-request resource pool for the request;
otherwise it is a resource pool which is used for configuration
data, and cleared on restarts. Either way, it is important for
the structure being created to vanish when the pool is cleared,
by registering a cleanup on the pool if necessary).</p>
<p>For the MIME module, the per-dir config creation function
just <code>ap_palloc</code>s the structure above, and a creates
a couple of <code>table</code>s to fill it. That looks like
this:</p>
<pre>
void *create_mime_dir_config (pool *p, char *dummy)
{
mime_dir_config *new =
(mime_dir_config *) ap_palloc (p, sizeof(mime_dir_config));
new-&gt;forced_types = ap_make_table (p, 4);
new-&gt;encoding_types = ap_make_table (p, 4);
return new;
}
</pre>
Now, suppose we've just read in a <code>.htaccess</code> file.
We already have the per-directory configuration structure for
the next directory up in the hierarchy. If the
<code>.htaccess</code> file we just read in didn't have any
<code>AddType</code> or <code>AddEncoding</code> commands, its
per-directory config structure for the MIME module is still
valid, and we can just use it. Otherwise, we need to merge the
two structures somehow.
<p>To do that, the server invokes the module's per-directory
config merge function, if one is present. That function takes
three arguments: the two structures being merged, and a
resource pool in which to allocate the result. For the MIME
module, all that needs to be done is overlay the tables from
the new per-directory config structure with those from the
parent:</p>
<pre>
void *merge_mime_dir_configs (pool *p, void *parent_dirv, void *subdirv)
{
mime_dir_config *parent_dir = (mime_dir_config *)parent_dirv;
mime_dir_config *subdir = (mime_dir_config *)subdirv;
mime_dir_config *new =
(mime_dir_config *)ap_palloc (p, sizeof(mime_dir_config));
new-&gt;forced_types = ap_overlay_tables (p, subdir-&gt;forced_types,
parent_dir-&gt;forced_types);
new-&gt;encoding_types = ap_overlay_tables (p, subdir-&gt;encoding_types,
parent_dir-&gt;encoding_types);
return new;
}
</pre>
As a note --- if there is no per-directory merge function
present, the server will just use the subdirectory's
configuration info, and ignore the parent's. For some modules,
that works just fine (<em>e.g.</em>, for the includes module,
whose per-directory configuration information consists solely
of the state of the <code>XBITHACK</code>), and for those
modules, you can just not declare one, and leave the
corresponding structure slot in the module itself
<code>NULL</code>.
<h3><a id="commands" name="commands">Command handling</a></h3>
Now that we have these structures, we need to be able to figure
out how to fill them. That involves processing the actual
<code>AddType</code> and <code>AddEncoding</code> commands. To
find commands, the server looks in the module's <code>command
table</code>. That table contains information on how many
arguments the commands take, and in what formats, where it is
permitted, and so forth. That information is sufficient to
allow the server to invoke most command-handling functions with
pre-parsed arguments. Without further ado, let's look at the
<code>AddType</code> command handler, which looks like this
(the <code>AddEncoding</code> command looks basically the same,
and won't be shown here):
<pre>
char *add_type(cmd_parms *cmd, mime_dir_config *m, char *ct, char *ext)
{
if (*ext == '.') ++ext;
ap_table_set (m-&gt;forced_types, ext, ct);
return NULL;
}
</pre>
This command handler is unusually simple. As you can see, it
takes four arguments, two of which are pre-parsed arguments,
the third being the per-directory configuration structure for
the module in question, and the fourth being a pointer to a
<code>cmd_parms</code> structure. That structure contains a
bunch of arguments which are frequently of use to some, but not
all, commands, including a resource pool (from which memory can
be allocated, and to which cleanups should be tied), and the
(virtual) server being configured, from which the module's
per-server configuration data can be obtained if required.
<p>Another way in which this particular command handler is
unusually simple is that there are no error conditions which it
can encounter. If there were, it could return an error message
instead of <code>NULL</code>; this causes an error to be
printed out on the server's <code>stderr</code>, followed by a
quick exit, if it is in the main config files; for a
<code>.htaccess</code> file, the syntax error is logged in the
server error log (along with an indication of where it came
from), and the request is bounced with a server error response
(HTTP error status, code 500).</p>
<p>The MIME module's command table has entries for these
commands, which look like this:</p>
<pre>
command_rec mime_cmds[] = {
{ "AddType", add_type, NULL, OR_FILEINFO, TAKE2,
"a mime type followed by a file extension" },
{ "AddEncoding", add_encoding, NULL, OR_FILEINFO, TAKE2,
"an encoding (<em>e.g.</em>, gzip), followed by a file extension" },
{ NULL }
};
</pre>
The entries in these tables are:
<ul>
<li>The name of the command</li>
<li>The function which handles it</li>
<li>a <code>(void *)</code> pointer, which is passed in the
<code>cmd_parms</code> structure to the command handler ---
this is useful in case many similar commands are handled by
the same function.</li>
<li>A bit mask indicating where the command may appear. There
are mask bits corresponding to each
<code>AllowOverride</code> option, and an additional mask
bit, <code>RSRC_CONF</code>, indicating that the command may
appear in the server's own config files, but <em>not</em> in
any <code>.htaccess</code> file.</li>
<li>A flag indicating how many arguments the command handler
wants pre-parsed, and how they should be passed in.
<code>TAKE2</code> indicates two pre-parsed arguments. Other
options are <code>TAKE1</code>, which indicates one
pre-parsed argument, <code>FLAG</code>, which indicates that
the argument should be <code>On</code> or <code>Off</code>,
and is passed in as a boolean flag, <code>RAW_ARGS</code>,
which causes the server to give the command the raw, unparsed
arguments (everything but the command name itself). There is
also <code>ITERATE</code>, which means that the handler looks
the same as <code>TAKE1</code>, but that if multiple
arguments are present, it should be called multiple times,
and finally <code>ITERATE2</code>, which indicates that the
command handler looks like a <code>TAKE2</code>, but if more
arguments are present, then it should be called multiple
times, holding the first argument constant.</li>
<li>Finally, we have a string which describes the arguments
that should be present. If the arguments in the actual config
file are not as required, this string will be used to help
give a more specific error message. (You can safely leave
this <code>NULL</code>).</li>
</ul>
Finally, having set this all up, we have to use it. This is
ultimately done in the module's handlers, specifically for its
file-typing handler, which looks more or less like this; note
that the per-directory configuration structure is extracted
from the <code>request_rec</code>'s per-directory configuration
vector by using the <code>ap_get_module_config</code> function.
<pre>
int find_ct(request_rec *r)
{
int i;
char *fn = ap_pstrdup (r-&gt;pool, r-&gt;filename);
mime_dir_config *conf = (mime_dir_config *)
ap_get_module_config(r-&gt;per_dir_config, &amp;mime_module);
char *type;
if (S_ISDIR(r-&gt;finfo.st_mode)) {
r-&gt;content_type = DIR_MAGIC_TYPE;
return OK;
}
if((i=ap_rind(fn,'.')) &lt; 0) return DECLINED;
++i;
if ((type = ap_table_get (conf-&gt;encoding_types, &amp;fn[i])))
{
r-&gt;content_encoding = type;
/* go back to previous extension to try to use it as a type */
fn[i-1] = '\0';
if((i=ap_rind(fn,'.')) &lt; 0) return OK;
++i;
}
if ((type = ap_table_get (conf-&gt;forced_types, &amp;fn[i])))
{
r-&gt;content_type = type;
}
return OK;
}
</pre>
<h3><a id="servconf" name="servconf">Side notes --- per-server
configuration, virtual servers, <em>etc</em>.</a></h3>
The basic ideas behind per-server module configuration are
basically the same as those for per-directory configuration;
there is a creation function and a merge function, the latter
being invoked where a virtual server has partially overridden
the base server configuration, and a combined structure must be
computed. (As with per-directory configuration, the default if
no merge function is specified, and a module is configured in
some virtual server, is that the base configuration is simply
ignored).
<p>The only substantial difference is that when a command needs
to configure the per-server private module data, it needs to go
to the <code>cmd_parms</code> data to get at it. Here's an
example, from the alias module, which also indicates how a
syntax error can be returned (note that the per-directory
configuration argument to the command handler is declared as a
dummy, since the module doesn't actually have per-directory
config data):</p>
<pre>
char *add_redirect(cmd_parms *cmd, void *dummy, char *f, char *url)
{
server_rec *s = cmd-&gt;server;
alias_server_conf *conf = (alias_server_conf *)
ap_get_module_config(s-&gt;module_config,&amp;alias_module);
alias_entry *new = ap_push_array (conf-&gt;redirects);
if (!ap_is_url (url)) return "Redirect to non-URL";
new-&gt;fake = f; new-&gt;real = url;
return NULL;
}
</pre>
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