There is a severe bug in SecureServer 2.0. Logging of user access to the site improperly processes control characters. The bug is 100% reproducable. Situation leading to discover: https://www.seifried.org/ - running RedHat 5.2 (with standard patches/etc), and RedHat Secure Server 2.0. I had setup a directory with htaccess requiring users to log in (using email as their username and a6 digit password). All was working fine, I tested it using MSIE 4.01, MSIE 5.0, and Netscape 4.07 on another RedHat 5.2 machine. I then got a few other people to test it, and strangely one person could not log in. So I tried his username/password combo, worked fine for me. He was running slackware and netscape 3.something, after checking the log files I saw: ----- charon.ipal.com - phil.net [29/Nov/1998:18:52:38 -0700] "GET /redhat-5.x/ HTTP/1.0" 401 473 ---- Note that the line is split, this is not due to line wrap or anything, as we also have good entries like: ---- c60586-a.ptbrg1.sfba.home.com - schr [29/Nov/1998:23:08:51 -0700] "GET /redhat-5.x/package-listing/sendmail-doc-8.8.7- 20.i386.rpm.html HTTP/1.0" 200 721 ---- which was one line but pine broke it up. It seems that netscape 3.X sends an extra "\n" after the username/etc which should be valid, but apache interpets it literally, and in addition to the pops it into the log file, which can result in spoofed entries and all other sorts of bad things. I believe this was a problem in Apache 1.2, but was fixed, and I guess reintroduced, so could you please refix it? =) Apart from that I really like SecureServer 2.0 (plus a glitch or two in some of the utils like dbmmanage, but c'est la vie). -seifried, MCSE
This has been assigned to a developer for further review.
I suggest that you use the LogFormat / CustomLog directives to address this problem in the short term. In the long term, we will soon be releasing an update of Secure Web Server which will be based on Apache 1.3.3 (you currently have a version based on Apache 1.3.1).