ChangeLog
If you contributed or suggested something and if your name is not
here, please drop me a line and get the credit.
Count 2.6
build script was broken. It was not taking any arguments. Thanks to
Drew Skinner, drew@myth.net.
(Sep-18-1999)
configure script was badly broken. I think it's fixed now. Added
all_nottf, all_nodb_nottf options in Makefile.
(Aug-22-1999)
Core dumping at startup on DEC alphas as it should. It's possible
when database support is on, we don't have any QUERY_STRING. Mistakenly
it was assumed there's a QUERY_STING.
(Aug-21-1999)
For proxy servers, REMOTE_ADDR is always the same. So if
count_reload=No in the config file, the
counter would never increment. Juha Ojaniemi, tiedot@daous.fi suggested that
some proxy servers set a variable HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR. So I check for this
var first before REMOTE_ADDR.
(Aug-18-1999)
If database support is on and a database specified by RGB_DATABASE in
config.h exists, it will be used rather than the rgb.txt file specified
by RGB_MAPPING_DICT in config.h. It will make color lookup much faster.
(Aug-16-1999)
Database support
(Jul-25-1999)
Count 2.6 beta released.
(May-23-1999)
Count 2.5
Compositing the counter on a base image had many bugs.
All are fixed I think.
Now you can composite
counter, clock or countdown image on a base image (previously only counter
image could be composited). Left padding the counter while compositing
was not working either. The align keyword had
more values now, namely topleft, topcenter, topright, midleft, midcenter, midright,
bottomleft, bottomcenter and bottomright. A new keyword
offset can be used with align
to specify the offset (in pixels) of the counter image from the edge
of the base image.
(May-16-1999)
The meaning of image parameter is changed. Now this
parameter is used for compositing the counter, clock, date or countdown image.
If no display parameter is used, the default is to
composite the counter image.
(May-16-1999)
A new boolean keyword sdhms (show day hr
min sec) is added, so that only days in countdown can be displayed.
(May-16-1999)
A new parameter display=version is introduced to
show the version of the counter. A command line flag -version also can be
used to find out the version of the counter.
(May-16-1999)
mystrncasecmp() function was mistakenly had ANSI definition.
(Apr-26-1999)
Count 2.5 final release on Mar-01-1999.
If configuration file was not readable or if there's an error found
while reading the config file, no error message was displayed telling that.
Thanks to Darren_WONG@ura.gov.sg for reporting it.
(Feb-08-1999)
There was a bug in assertSegarray(). If the image strip had only digits
(0-9), and if
display=clock was specified, the program
was core dumping due to accessing an un-initialized array for the colon image
segment. Reported by
Daisuke Aoyama, jack@st.rim.or.jp and Andy Machan,
hostmaster@unitedbank.net (almost at the same time, very interesting!).
(Feb-08-1999)
If hour in clock is < 10, left pad it with zero. This is the default
behavior now. To turn off zero padding use pad=F.
Suggested by Kira Anastasia.
(Feb-08-1999)
There was a bug in implied Year 2000 countdown code. Thanks to
Craig Brockmeier, craig@seurat.ppco.com.
(Feb-08-1999)
strict_mode was getting ignored from
the count.cfg file. It was always ON. Thanks to Sergey Drazhnikov,
swd @parad.ru.
(Feb-01-1999)
some "make" commands were not working on systems with no "." in path.
Thanks to Kevin J. Walsh.
(Jan-29-1999).
added a new digit style cdr (countdown
red). Contributed by Mike Casper.
(Jan-29-1999).
Date format was not working, fixed. Thanks to Peter Worboys
pworboys@awa.com.au.
(Jan-27-1999, 5:30 PM)
To show full year in the date, in addition to the option
fy, you can specify YYYY with the option
dformat. For example,
dformat=MMDDYYYY is equivalent to dformat=MMDDYY&fy=T. Suggested by
Peter Worboys pworboys@awa.com.au
(Jan-27-1999)
Countdown can be calculated in reference to any timezone with the
parameter timezone. It will allow you to
show the
countdown to Year 2000 from GMT instead
of local web server time for example. Suggested by
Eileen Wharmby, ewharmby@amdragon.com.
(Jan-24-1999)
Wrote a new mystrncasecmp() routine, using in parsing the QUERY_STRING
parsing.
(Jan-21-1999)
I specified some dates as 1998 instead of 1999. Thanks to
Pete Tedder, tedder@umds.ac.uk.
(Jan-21-1999)
Added a new option align to align the
counter image on the base image. This option can be used to composite the
counter on a base image with known width and height (may be with align=right).
This way, you will be able specify the width and height of the counter image
in the <img src= tag while calling the counter. The implication is, if the
counter is the first thing in a large table, the browser will not have to wait
to calculate the width and height of the counter image before loading the
rest. Suggested by
Sarwat Khan.
(Jan-17-1999)
some security fix.
(Jan-21-1999)
Binary release for NT is done. There was no need for a single line
of source code change. So, if you are on Unix, do not need to update.
(Jan-11-1999)
The counter option show_error_messages_to_browsers in
count.cfg was not working, fixed.
(Jan-06-1999, 7:11 PM)
A debug routine which prints the contents of count.cfg to stderr was not
taken out, by accident. So if you ran the counter on an apache web server,
you would have seen the content of the count.cfg file in the error_log with
each invocation of the counter. If you ran a netscape web server, you would
have seen a broken image as netscape server merges
stderr with stdout resulting invalid MIME header. Thanks to
Andrew Chung.
(Jan-06-1999)
Compilation instruction was wrong. Thanks to
Andrew Chung.
(Jan-04-1999).
Released on Jan-03-1999.
The format of the configuration
file is changed. The file format is similar to MS INI files.
(Dec-27-1998).
The site admin can decide if she/he wants to show the counter error
messages to the visitors by specifying a keyword and value
(show_error_messages_to_browsers=Yes or No) in the
configuration file in the [options] section.
(Dec-27-1998)
Full year can displayed in date if the parameter
fy is used. This feature was requested by
Dave Low, davel@suppdb.bt.co.uk.
By the way, the program was year 2000 safe
even before that.
(Dec-20-1998)
Option to show the "from" date and time of the countdown.
(Dec-19-1998)
The counter can be composited to a image to a specific x,y location.
(Dec-19-1998)
Reload ignore/count is a configurable option in
count.cfg file.
(Dec-13-1998)
Data file format is changed. Now the data ends with $
and the data is significant up to the first $ sign. No need to use
ftruncate() anymore. It was kind of risky, if the system was out of
diskspace, data file was zero'd out. It will also help with systems where
ftruncate() is not available. Please read
FAQ Question# 11 for details.
(Dec-13-1998)
Added more information to the documentation.
(Dec-13-1998)
Countdown to a specific date from current time.
(Dec-13-1998)
Count 2.4
Thanks to
Daniel Klein for correcting lots of mistakes in the documentation.
(Sep-14-1998).
wwwcount mailing list created. Send a request message to
wwwcount-request@pcraft.com with 'SUBSCRIBE
your@email.address.com' in the body of your message
(no subject is needed). Thanks to Ashley M. Kirchner,
ashley@photocraftlab.com.
(July-14-1998).
Count-install is changed. If you're installing as root and specify the
user and group the web server runs as, the install program will change
the ownership and group of the datafile and the log directory to that user
and group only. Before everything was owned by the user, which is not
necessary.
(May-09-1998).
bigplus library was called without initializing properly. I got some
reports that on certain platforms, counter increments by 1000 sometimes.
This should fix it.
(Apr-26-1998).
Thanks to Robert Edmonds
and Muhammad Riza cadmandu@cbn.net.id
for explaining the mystery of IE 4.01 and gzip compressed files with .gz
extension.
(Mar-25-1998).
Added valign=top to the options table, it looks nicer now.
Suggested by m.c. schraefelmschrae@uvvm.uvic.ca.
(Jan-03-1998)
Added the FAQ about virtual servers.
(Jan-03-1998).
The source distribution has VMS support now, that means, the source
can be compiled on Unix, NT and VMS. VMS port is done
by Phil Ottewell phil@pottsoft.demon.co.uk.
(Nov-30-1997).
People running virtual hosts can list only there IP addresses
instead of having to add each virtual domain name to cfg file. Can be
activated the code at compile time with the flag -DUSE_DNS at
src/Makefile.in. Patch sent by Sean Reifschneider,
jafo@tummy.com.
(Nov-22-1997).
Count-config was not working properly. Thanks to
Ashley M. Kirchner, ashley@photocraftlab.com.
(Nov-22-1997).
It was reported that counter sometime leaves zero size datafiles.
Now, before calling ftrucate(), check if there's anything to write.
truncate only if there's something to write. Thanks to
xsw@ornl.gov, Brian S. Wallace.
(Nov-21-1997).
mkstrip directory is moved from utils to utils/mkstrip.
(Nov-15-1997).
The colon digit in digit style D was not black. Thanks to
Engler, Eric, englere@smtps.saia.af.mil.
(Nov-13-1997).
A bug in Count-install script showed up due to the change in source
directory structure. The location of Count.cgi was hard coded at the
current working directory. Thanks to Chris Bowlby
015940b@dragon.acadiau.ca.
(Nov-11-1997).
to_str in safeStrcpy() was not getting NULL terminated all the
time. mhpower@mit.edu
(Nov-10-1997).
More security patches by Matt Power, mhpower@mit.edu. It
was possible to overflow some static buffers used in sprintf.
(Nov-09-1997).
Changes in source code structure. The main source has been moved
to src directory. A toplevel Makefile is provided.
(Nov-07-1997).
The users who are getting "Source buffer is NULL in safeStrcat()"
should be fixed now. Thanks to Wincom Administrator,
admin@wcis.com.
(Nov-07-1997, 11:25 PM EST)
Some security patches by Matt Power, mhpower@mit.edu.
It was possible to overflow some static buffers.
(Nov-07-1997).
There were some typos in Gen-conf and parse.c. Thanks to
Craig Brockmeier, craig@picasso.ppco.com.
(Nov-05-1997).
A malloc bug was in utils.c. Thanks to Steven D. Chen,
steven.d.chen@boeing.com.
(Nov-05-1997).
Implementation of safeStrcat() was incorrect. patch sent by
Matt Power, mhpower@mit.edu.
(Nov-03-1997).
If "image" parameter is used and no datafile is specified, ignore
counting silently.
(Nov-02-1997).
"Reload Ignore" feature can be turned off at compile time by
defining the directive COUNT_IGNORE in src/Makefile.
(Nov-01-1997).
If the content of the datafile was 0, IP as not getting added to
the content at all.
(Oct-30-1997).
If QUERY_STRING is empty, it was not showing the proper error
message. Thanks to Mark Gilmore, mark@smtek.com.
(Oct-30-1997).
Hostnames in auth block were case sensitive. Patch sent by
Takeshi OKURA, okura@osa.ncs.co.jp.
(Oct-30-1997).
There was a bug in date display in 24 hr format with "tformat=24".
I don't remember who reported it.
(Oct-28-1997).
Some unnecessary include headers were left in bigplus.c.
Compilation was
failing on FreeBSD. Thanks to Greg King ,king@c-com.net.
(Oct-25-1997)
It was possible to go up directories with dd= parameter. Thanks to
Pauli Ojanpera, ojapa@japo.fi.
(Oct-21-1997)
Gen-conf was creating wrong count.cfg file about rgb.txt.
Thanks to Bill O'Neill, woneill@pobox.com.
(oct-21-1997)
Makefile.in in utils directory was wrong. Thanks to
Heicher, hexular@concentric.net.
(Oct-21-1997)
comma=T used to core dump on Solaris 2.5. patch sent by
James Burton, jamesb@aone.com.au
(Oct-21-1997)
Meaning of BLOCK 3 of the count.cfg file differers with that of
Count 2.3. So if you're using an older config file, change the boolean
in this block.
Count 2.3
Buffer overflow vulnerabilities are fixed. They are very quick fix
and I might have overlooked something. Please let me know. There was a
bug with image= parameter related to relative path. It's fixed as well
. These fixes only apply to the source distribution. The binary
distributions of other platforms still have these bugs. (Oct-17-1997)
Count 2.2 (January 16, 1996)
There was a logic problem in determining AM and PM. Thanks to
(stephen@txdirect.net). 01/18/96
Strict mode (detect if browser returns HTTP_REFERER) is a configurable
option.
An error was in the code related to ACCESS_AUTH directive. Reported
by c2dhanle@CompApp.DCU.IE
Count 2.1 (January 15, 1996)
The bug related to st parameter is fixed.
The same program an be used to display time or date.
Count 2.0 (December 27, 1995)
Configuration scripts. You should not to need to hand edit any file in
order to compile and install the counter.
Reasonable defaults for all QUERY_STRING parameters.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
QUERY_STRING parameters can be in any order and not case sensitive.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
Counter can be displayed without incrementing.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
A literal digit string can be displayed.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
A random digit string can be displayed as counter.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
Colors can be negated, that is counter can be displayed as a negative
copy.
The counter can be rotated (integral of 90 degrees, 90,180,270 degrees).
No need to specify width and height of digit images.
The frame and transparent color can be a name (e.g. red, violet etc),
a hex string (e.g. ffffff, ff00ff, dddddd etc.)
as well as RGB triplets (e.g. 160;255;0, 0;0;0 etc) as before.
Implemented by Kevin J. Walsh
The counter can be called as simply as:
<img src="/cgi-bin/Count.cgi?df=count.dat">
or as complex as before. or any attribute can be set independently.
Count 2.0b
Log directory was not created by the Count-install script.
(Thanks to robertg@zoom.com). (12/07/95).
Thanks to John Anthony Ruchak
for beta testing Count 1.5.
Count 1.5
(September 11, 1995, 9:00 PM EDT)
can be compiled with -DALLOW_FILE_CREATION option. if compiled with
this option, the data file will be created if it does not exist in
the directory defined with DataDir and the value defined with st in
QUERY_STRING will be written to it.
(suggested by
John Anthony Ruchak.
(September 10, 1995)
Advisory data file locking. Datafile will not get messed up by
simultaneous Count.cgi processes.
Error messages are converted directly from string to image. No
included GIF images are needed, will be beneficial for system with
low memory. I borrowed the font array and some code from
gd library.
Thanks to
Tom Boutell
Authorized host names can be in configuration file.
The hits on the web page can be counted without displaying the digits.
suggested by Andres
Sepulveda.
Count 1.4
(August 27, 1995)
wigingto@umr.edu suggested to use HTTP_REFERER for checking remote
access to the counter.
randerso@bite.db.uth.tmc.edu sent some code segment to account for
port numbers at the end of a referrer URL.
Ornamental frame with user defined color and thickness on the fly.
maximum number of digits can be >= 5 or <= 10 (if you use md)
(on the fly).
if pad=0, the exact number of digits will be displayed without left
padding with zeros (on the fly).
Any color of the digits can be made transparent on the fly.
Digit style can be provided on the fly.
sdw@iadfw.net suggested to keep configuration file, data file, digits,
log file in separate directories. It will fix a security hole.
datafile can be edited.
Count 1.3
Hardcoded the base directory of the counter data files. This will fix
a security hole. Thanks to carsten@group.com