From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.3 (2006-06-01) on yquem.inria.fr X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=none autolearn=disabled version=3.1.3 Received: from concorde.inria.fr (concorde.inria.fr [192.93.2.39]) by yquem.inria.fr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8CE81BC0B for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:50:37 +0100 (CET) Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de (moutng.kundenserver.de [212.227.126.177]) by concorde.inria.fr (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id kBSJoav0014622 for ; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:50:37 +0100 Received: from [84.58.156.59] (helo=gate.lan.gerd-stolpmann.de) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (node=mrelayeu2) with ESMTP (Nemesis), id 0MKwtQ-1H01GY1win-0006th; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:50:24 +0100 Received: from noname (p508B7E72.dip.t-dialin.net [80.139.126.114]) by gate.lan.gerd-stolpmann.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 525A9C14F; Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:50:13 +0100 (CET) Subject: ocamlnet-2.2 released From: Gerd Stolpmann To: caml-list@inria.fr Cc: ocamlnet-devel X-Sieve: CMU Sieve 2.2 X-Provags-ID: kundenserver.de abuse@kundenserver.de login:a6865a839c0178d9aa0ce41878507ea2 X-BeenThere: ocamlnet-devel@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.8 X-Spam: no; 0.00; stolpmann:01 ocamlnet-:01 ocamlnet-:01 ocamlnet:01 equeue:01 netclient:01 libraries:01 libraries:01 netplex:01 netplex:01 simplifies:01 dynamically:01 adapts:01 sunrpc:01 ocamlnet:01 Content-Type: text/plain Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 20:50:14 +0100 Message-Id: <1167335415.8067.43.camel@localhost.localdomain> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.6.1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Miltered: at concorde with ID 4594200C.001 by Joe's j-chkmail (http://j-chkmail . ensmp . fr)! X-Spam: no; 0.00; ocamlnet-:01 gerd:01 stolpmann:01 ocamlnet-:01 gerd:01 ocamlnet:01 netclient:01 threads:01 workload:01 ocamlnet:01 netcgi:01 netcgi:01 netstring:01 netclient:01 ad-hoc:01 Hi lists, finally ocamlnet-2.2 is released! This version is identical to the 2.2rc1 version, as no bugs have been found since then. http://www.ocaml-programming.de/packages/ocamlnet-2.2.tar.gz In the rest of this (long) email, I'll explain certain aspects of this version: 1. What's new in ocamlnet-2.2 2. Release notes 3. How you can help testing 4. Resources 5. Credits Gerd ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. What's new in ocamlnet-2.2 ------------------------------------------------------------ Ocamlnet now includes equeue, netclient, and rpc These libraries were previously distributed as separate software packages. All four libraries form now together the new ocamlnet-2.2. This allows much deeper integration of their functionality. Building servers with Netplex The framework Netplex simplifies the development of server applications that require the parallel execution of requests. It focuses on multi-processing servers but also allows multi-threading servers. Netplex manages the start and stop of processes/threads, and dynamically adapts itself to the current workload. Netplex allows it to integrate several network protocols into one application, and as it also supports SunRPC as protocol, one can consider it even as component architecture. Furthermore, it has infrastructure to read configuration files and to log messages. Ocamlnet includes add-ons for Netplex to build SunRPC servers, web servers, and web application servers (the latter over the protocols AJP, FastCGI, or SCGI). The revised API for web applications The library netcgi2 is a revised version of the old cgi API (now also called netcgi1). The changes focus on restructuring the library in order to improve its modularity. It is hoped that beginners find more quickly the relevant functions and methods. The API is essentially the same, but the support for cookies has been enhanced. The connectors allowing a web server to talk with the application have been completely redeveloped - all four connectors (CGI, AJP, FastCGI, SCGI) support the same features. The connector for SCGI is new. The connector for AJP has been upgraded to protocol version 1.3. There are Netplex add-ons for the connectors. The old API is still available, but its features are frozen. It is recommended to port applications to netcgi2. Improvements for SunRPC applications It is now possible to use the SunRPC over SSL tunnels. All features are available, including asynchronous messages. As a side effect of this, the SunRPC implementation is now transport-independent, i.e. it is sufficient to implement a few class types to run RPC over any kind of transport. Furthermore, a few details have been improved. SunRPC servers can now implement several RPC programs or program versions at the same time. SunRPC clients can now connect to their servers in the background. A few bugs have been fixed, too. Shared memory As multi-processing has become quite important due to Netplex, Ocamlnet supports now the inter-process communication over shared memory. The implementation is brand-new and probably not very fast, but shared memory makes sometimes things a lot easier for multi-processing applications. Old things remain good Of course, this version of Ocamlnet supports the long list of features it inherited from its predecessors. This includes an enhanced HTTP client, a Telnet client, a (still incomplete) FTP client, a POP client, and an SMTP client. The shell library is an enhanced version of Sys.command. The netstring library is a large collection of string routines useful in the Internet context (supports URLs, HTML, mail messages, date strings, character set conversions, Base 64, and a few other things). ------------------------------------------------------------ 2. Release notes ------------------------------------------------------------ Stability In general, the stability of this version is excellent. About 90 % of the code has been taken over from previous versions of ocamlnet, equeue, netclient, and rpc, and this means that this code is already mature. About 10 % of the code has been newly developed: - netcgi2 is a revised version of the cgi library. Large parts are completely new. - netplex is the new server framework. Fortunately, it could already be used in a production environment, and it has proven excellent stability there. - netcgi2-plex combines netcgi2 and netplex. - nethttpd has now the option to use netcgi2 as cgi provider (configure option -prefer-netcgi2). - netshm adds shared memory support. - equeue-ssl and rpc-ssl add SSL support to the RPC libraries. Known Problems There are known problems in this release which will be solved in a later version: - There is no good concept to manage signals. This is currently done ad-hoc. For now, this does not make any problems, or better, there is always the workaround that the user sets the signal handlers manually if any problems occur. - The new cookie implementation of netcgi2 should replace the old one in netstring. Users should be prepared that Netcgi.Cookie will eventually become Nethttp.Cookie in one of the next releases. - In netcgi2-plex, the "mount_dir" and "mount_at" options are not yet implemented. - In netclient, aggressive caching of HTTP connections is still buggy. Do not use this option (by default, it is not enabled). - The FTP client is still incomplete. ------------------------------------------------------------ 3. How you can help testing ------------------------------------------------------------ It would be great if experienced developers tested the libraries, especially the new and revised ones. Discussions should take place in the Ocamlnet mailing list (see resources section below). It is important to know that this version of Ocamlnet also includes the libraries formerly distributed as equeue, netclient, and rpc. If you upgrade an O'Caml installation, you _must_ remove old versions of these libraries prio to the installation of the new Ocamlnet. The GODI system is already updated, and you can get ocamlnet2 using the standard update mechanism (for O'Caml 3.09 only). ------------------------------------------------------------ 4. Resources ------------------------------------------------------------ On online version of the reference manual can be found here: http://ocamlnet.sourceforge.net/manual-2.2/ The current development version is available in Subversion: https://gps.dynxs.de/svn/lib-ocamlnet Note that the ocamlnet file tree in Sourceforge refers to ocamlnet-1 only. There is a mailing list for Ocamlnet development: http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=19774 In case of problems, you can also contact me directly: Gerd Stolpmann ------------------------------------------------------------ 5. Credits ------------------------------------------------------------ A number of people and institutions helped creating this new version: - Christophe Troestler wrote the revised CGI library - The California State University sponsored the development of Netplex and the SSL support for SunRPC. Special thanks to Eric Stokes who convinced the University, and David Aragon for his business support. - All companies who hired me this year and made it possible that I can make a living from O'Caml development. Without that it would have been impossible to put so much energy into this. Special thanks go to Yaron Minsky and Mika Illouz. Gerd -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de Phone: +49-6151-153855 Fax: +49-6151-997714 ------------------------------------------------------------