PQ76785: Cumulative plug-in fix for WebSphere Application Server V 3.5.4-3.5.7
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Abstract
Cumulative plug-in fix for WebSphere Application Server Version 3.5.4-3.5.7 (includes PQ76785 - WebSphere Application Server 3.5 & WebSphere Application Server 4.0 co-existence pro
Download Description
USERS AFFECTED:
WebSphere Application Server 3.5 & 4.0 coexistence configurations with a common IHS or Apache web server (both WebSphere plug-ins loaded in the same web server).
PQ76785 is also new Cumulative Plug-in fix for WebSphere 3.5.4-3.5.7 which you have to apply if you experience any plug-in problems in WebSphere Application Server 3.5.
PROBLEM DESCRIPTION:
After interim fix PQ65964 was applied on the web server that is configured with WebSphere Application Server 3.5 & 4.0 plug-ins, the web server is crashing on every new request with the following of error message (the example is from IHS on Unix):
[Thu Jul 24 17:33:55 2003] [notice] child pid 8247 exit signal Bus Error (10)
On systems where WebSphere Application Server 3.5 and 4.0 plug-ins are coexisting on the same web server, the problem with PQ65964 can cause one of the plug-ins to crash on every new request. For this problem to occur, the WebSphere Application Server 3.5 system must have either PQ65964 or Fix Pack 3.5.7 applied, and the 4.0 system must have Fix Pack 4.0.5 or later applied. The problem will not occur in earlier releases. When this happens, one of the plugin versions will work fine, while the other one will fail on every request. For each failed request, there will be signs of a crash in the Web server logs ( on Windows, the Dr Watson logs; on Unix systems, usually segmentation faults and bus errors ).
PROBLEM CONCLUSION:
The problem was caused by a symbol name clash in the two versions of the plug-ins. We changed the name of the symbol to avoid the clash fixes the problem.
PQ76785 is also new Cumulative Plug-in fix for WebSphere Application Server 3.5 which includes these fixes:
PQ60991, PQ76785, PQ60039, PQ61926, PQ57425, PQ65964, PQ77057 & all other plug-in fixes that were included in PTF7. This fix was built on top of PTF7 and it MUST be applied on ALL Web server & WebSphere 3.5 servers.
NEW FEATURES PRESENT IN WEBSPHERE 3.5.6, 3.5.7 AND PQ76785 PLUG-IN:
In the WebSphere Application Server 3.5.0-3.5.5 plug-in, the VirtualHost matching is done against the port number of the web server that the request was received on. In the WebSphere Application Server 3.5.6 & later plug-in, the VirtualHost matching is done against the port number that is parsed from the host header. This behavior fully complies with HTTP 1.1 spec & there is not any available parameter in the plug-in that can set the old behavior. PQ76785 is built on top of WebSphere Application Server 3.5.7 code. It means, that after you install the Cumulative Plug-in fix PQ76785, the algorithm of how the plugin matches the port number of the incoming http request, is changed. This is important to remember, that the plug-in matching algorithm has changed, after you install PQ76785 to WebSphere Application Server 3.5.4 or 3.5.5 configurations (PQ76785 is not available for WebSphere Application Server 3.5.3 & bellow). IBM strongly recommends to test this fix on your test system before you apply this fix to your production system, so that you can learn what other additional changes in VirtualHost mappings are needed.
SUPERSEDES FIXES: plug-in fixes included in PTF 7, PQ77057
This fix also replaces PQ65964 that fixes the "Wrong port number on sendRedirect()" problem described in the following:
The WebSphere IHS/Apache plugin was getting the wrong port number for http request, from the wrong place. In most configurations, the port number will be correct - it could be incorrect for configurations where the webserver listens on a different port than what the request was sent to originally ( for instance, a proxy or load balancer that redirects the request to IBM HTTP Server ). Getting the wrong port number can impact virtual host matching, and also breaks sendRedirect()s on relative paths. We changed the code so the plug-in is definitely getting the port from the host header, and so it gets the correct port if it does have to default to asking the server what port a request came in on.
PQ76785 fix is not included in WebSphere Application Server PTF7.
Prerequisites
N/A
Installation instructions
Please view the readme file for detailed installation instructions.