NAME

Apache::ACEProxy - IDN compatible ACE proxy server

SYNOPSIS

      # in httpd.conf
      PerlTransHandler Apache::ACEProxy # default uses ::UTF8_RACE

DESCRIPTION

Apache::ACEProxy is a mod_perl based HTTP proxy server, which handles internationalized domain names correctly. This module automaticaly detects IDNs in HTTP requests and converts them in ACE encoding. Host: headers in HTTP requests are also encoded in ACE.

Set your browser's proxy setting to Apache::ACEProxy based server, and you can browse web-sites of multilingual domain names.

SUBCLASSING

Default ACE conversion is done from UTF8 to RACE. Here's how you customize this.

• Declare your ACE encoder class (like DUDE, AMC-ACE-Z).
• Inherit from Apache::ACEProxy.
• Define "encode()" class method.

That's all. Here's an example of implementation, extracted from Apache::ACEProxy::UTF8_RACE.

package Apache::ACEProxy::UTF8_RACE;

      use base qw(Apache::ACEProxy);
      use Convert::RACE qw(to_race);
      use Unicode::String qw(utf8);

      sub encode {
          my($class, $domain) = @;
          return torace(utf8($domain)->utf16);
      }

Note that you should define "encode()" method as a class method. Argument $domain is a (maybe UTF8) string that your browser sends to the proxy server.

At last, remember to add the following line to httpd.conf or so:

PerlTransHandler Apache::ACEProxy::UTF8_RACE

CAVEATS

The default Apache::ACEProxy::UTF8_RACE assumes that input domain names are encoded in UTF8. But currently it's known that:

• MSIE's "always send URL as UTF8" preference does NOT ALWAYS send correct UTF8 string.
• Netscape 4.x does NOT send URL as UTF8, but in local encodings.

So, this proxy server doesn't always work well with all the domains for all the browsers. If you figure out how your browser encodes multilingual domain names, you can write your custom translator as in the section on "SUBCLASSING". See also the Apache::ACEProxy::SJIS_RACE manpage if your mother language is Japanese.

Suggestions, patches and reports are welcome about this issue.

AUTHOR

Tastuhiko Miyagawa <miyagawa@bulknews.net>

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

This module comes with NO WARRANTY.

SEE ALSO

the Apache::ProxyPassThru manpage, the LWP::UserAgent manpage, the Unicode::String manpage, the Apache::ACEProxy::UTF8_RACE manpage, the Apache::ACEProxy::SJIS_RACE manpage