Posts for July 2012

2012-07-13: WebAuth 4.2.0

This is the Apache 2.4 support release. This release will build with either Apache 2.2 or Apache 2.4. The changes for mod_webauth and mod_webkdc were relatively straightforward, but mod_webauthldap required somewhat more work.

The old AuthType StanfordAuth group support in mod_webauthldap, where one could use require group with a privgroup name, will no longer work in Apache 2.4, so this seemed like a good release in which to deprecate StanfordAuth support. This was for backward-compatibility with WebAuth 2.5, which was never released outside of Stanford, so it shouldn't be too widely used. All StanfordAuth support will work in this release when built with Apache 2.2, and everything except the group support in mod_webauthldap will work with Apache 2.4. This support will be removed in a subsequent release.

Benjamin Coddington contributed support for using Kerberos keyring caches for passing delegated credentials to CGI and embedded code.

Merging of mod_webkdc directives have been fixed in some corner cases, and signal handling in WebLogin has been improved in the hope that this will solve some problems with runaway scripts under FastCGI.

Both the Perl API and the libwebauth API have changed considerably. The Perl API is now much more object-oriented, and all the Perl modules have documentation. Many APIs and some modules have been removed, and several new ones have been added. All the libwebauth key and keyring functions are now APR-aware. There are too many changes to list here; see the release notes for all the details.

You can get the latest release from the official WebAuth distribution site or from my WebAuth distribution pages.

2012-07-13 22:39 — Permanent link

2012-07-14: Random haul post

This is a variety of random stuff: some Kindle orders, a short trip to a used book store, a book from my mother. Another, larger order is on its way, since I've really felt like buying books recently.

Robert A. Heinlein — Stranger in a Strange Land (sff)
Jack McDevitt — Infinity Beach (sff)
Seanan McGuire — An Artificial Night (sff)
Larry Niven & Edward M. Lerner — Juggler of Worlds (sff)
Catherine M. Wilson — A Journey of the Heart (mainstream)
Catherine M. Wilson — A Hero's Tale (mainstream)

Now if I can just keep up a good reading pace.... I got to spend a lot of time reading over the last couple of weeks. There's so much great stuff to read!

2012-07-14 16:08 — Permanent link

2012-07-18: WebAuth 4.2.1

Kai Lanz uncovered a couple of problems with the 4.2.1 release: there was a type error that broke token decoding from a file on 64-bit systems, and an unconditional header include broke compilation with Apache 2.0. I also found an uninitialized memory error in a test case that wouldn't have caused problems for users but which caused Debian builds to fail.

WebAuth 4.2.1 has been released to fix these problems, since the 64-bit issue was particularly serious.

You can get the latest release from the official WebAuth distribution site or from my WebAuth distribution pages.

2012-07-18 16:56 — Permanent link

2012-07-19: WebAuth 4.2.2

The thing about refactoring is that you discover all the places where you don't have adequate test suites. I found two more problems introduced in 4.2.0 last night, one that made the WebLogin code unusable (masked by the fact that I had two different versions of the modules installed in my test environment and the wrong one was picked up first) and another that caused core dumps in the Apache child process after finishing ticket delegation.

WebAuth 4.2.2 has been released to fix these problems, since release early and often and all that.

You can get the latest release from the official WebAuth distribution site or from my WebAuth distribution pages.

2012-07-19 16:39 — Permanent link