                            Release Notes for:
                           ====================
                           TOMCAT Version 3.2.1
                           ====================


0.  TABLE OF CONTENTS:

    1.  Introduction
    2.  Installing and Running Tomcat
    3.  Application Development Using Tomcat
    4.  Tomcat: Past, Present, and Future
    5.  New Features In This Release
    6.  Known Bugs and Issues
    7.  Fixes and Enhancements in Updates


=============================================================================
1.  INTRODUCTION

Tomcat is a servlet container and JavaServer Pages(tm) implementation.  It may
be used stand alone, or in conjunction with several popular web servers:
- Apache, version 1.3 or later
- Microsoft Internet Information Server, version 4.0 or later
- Microsoft Personal Web Server, version 4.0 or later
- Netscape Enterprise Server, version 3.0 or later

You should read the License Agreement (in the LICENSE file of the top level
directory), which applies to all software included in this release.

This document adds descriptions of the bug fixes and enhancements that have
been added in update releases of Tomcat 3.2 since the original release.  See
Section 7 for details.


=============================================================================
2.  INSTALLING AND RUNNING TOMCAT

Tomcat requires a Java Runtime Environment conformant to JRE 1.1 or later,
including any Java2 platform system.  If you wish to develop applications,
you will need a Java compiler, such as the one included in a Java Development
Kit 1.1 or later environment, including JDKs conformant with Java2.

For detailed information about installing and running Tomcat, point your
browser at file "doc/uguide/tomcat_ug.html" under the directory into which
you unpacked the Tomcat distribution or see the documentation at
http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/index.html.


=============================================================================
3.  APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT USING TOMCAT

Preliminary information on using Tomcat for developing Servlet/JSP based
applications is provided in the included Application Developer's Guide.
Point your browser at file "doc/appdev/index.html" under the directory into
which you unpacked the Tomcat distribution.


=============================================================================
4.  TOMCAT: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

- Version 3.0 (released 12/1999) was the initial release of Tomcat.  In
addition to implementing the Java Servlet and Server Pages specification,
this release featured a minimal Apache connector.

- Tomcat 3.1 (released 4/2000) improved the Apache connection and added
connector support for Netscape and IIS web servers. It also added WAR file
support, automatic servlet reloading, and a command line tool (jspc) to
compile the JSP pages that comprise your application in advance of
deployment.  Finally, version 3.1 also focused on reorganizing the code
(modularization, cleanup, refactoring, removal of dead code, and separation
of J2EE-specific code).

- Tomcat 3.2 is the first performance tune-up, and also adds a few new
features (see next section).

- It is expected that Tomcat 3.3 will feature additional major performance
improvements resulting from changes in data representation and algorithms.
Version 3.3 will also undergo a major review of security  (to be able to
trust that "untrusted" code runs safely), and support for I18N character
sets.

- Tomcat 3.4 will likely focus on scalability and advanced load balancing.
It will also support version 2.3 of the Java Servlet specification.
(First-round support for version 2.3 for the servlet specification may be
included in version 3.3.)

=============================================================================
5.  NEW FEATURES IN THIS RELEASE

Tomcat 3.2 is mainly a performance tune-up release, although a few new
features have been added.

- Support for mod_jk, which is a replacement to the elderly mod_jserv, has
  had several bugs fixed and has received much more testing.  It is now
  recommended that all users use mod_jk instead of mod_jserv.

- Support JAXP-based XML parser independence.

- New and often requested "how-to" documents covering the following topics:
     - Configuring workers.properties
     - IIS and Netscape configuration
     - Running tomcat inside an IIS or Netscape process
     - Running Tomcat as a Windows NT service
     - Configuring a JDBC realm
     - Configuring mod_jk

- First round of policy-based security support intended for running untrusted
  code inside of Tomcat.  Interested users should test this support and post
  feedback to the Tomcat users mailing list.

- SSL support for standalone Tomcat. (Preliminary support first appeared in
  3.1, but the support in 3.2 has received more testing and documentation
  support).

- Thread reuse is now enabled by default. The thread pool support code was part
  of 3.1, but not enabled since it was new.

- Support for plug-able session managers.  Unfortunately, no how-to documents
  that support this functionality exist (yet). For the adventurous, be aware
  that the interface that allows administrators to plug session managers is
  the normal Interceptor interface.

- An almost total rewrite of the HTTP request handling now results in improved
  performance when running Tomcat stand-alone.

- Significantly reduced garbage collection.

- The code underwent a refactoring effort resulting in improved readability.

- And of course, hundreds of miscellaneous improvements and fixes.


=============================================================================
6.  KNOWN BUGS AND ISSUES

6.1 Using An Absolute Path as Document Root Under Windows

In the TOMCAT_HOME/conf/server.xml file, you can declare a relative or absolute
directory pathname for the docRoot attribute.  If you wish to use an absolute
pathname on a Windows system, you MUST include the drive letter in order to
conform to Java's definition of an absolute path on this platform:

    GOOD:  c:\mydirectory\mydocroot
    GOOD:  c:/mydirectory/mydocroot
    BAD:   \mydirectory\mydocroot
    BAD:   /mydirectory/mydocroot

Under Unix, absolute pathnames must begin with a slash ('/') character.


=============================================================================
7.  FIXES AND ENHANCEMENTS IN UPDATES

7.1 Fixes and Enhancements In Release 3.2.1

JDBCRealm - The exception message that is logged when an exception occurs now
includes a description of the actual SQLException, to aid in debugging the
cause of the problem.  Also, this class is no longer marked "final", so that
it can be conveniently subclassed by customized versions.

ShowSource - The mechanism used to display the JSP source examples could be
used to display sensitive files from the WEB-INF and META-INF directories.
This has been corrected.

SSL Documentation - The "doc/tomcat-ssl-howto.html" document has been updated
to reflect more current information about using Tomcat+Apache in an SSL
environment.

Security Vulnerability - Tomcat 3.2 (final) exposes sensitive information when
a URL like "http://localhost:8080/examples//WEB-INF/web.xml" (note the double
slash) is presented.  This has been corrected so that a 404 is returned.

