Annoucing Apache::ACEProxy HTTP proxy, which handles Internationalized Domain Names correctly.

What this module does is automatically detects multilingual Host: header, encodes it in ACE (default RACE, so encoded in bq--blahblah), and finally request that.

Any comments are welcome.

NAME
    Apache::ACEProxy - IDN compatible ACE proxy server

SYNOPSIS
      # in httpd.conf
      PerlTransHandler Apache::ACEProxy # default uses ::RACE

DESCRIPTION
    Apache::ACEProxy is a mod_perl based HTTP proxy server, which hand
+les
    internationalized domain names correctly. This module automaticaly
    detects IDNs in Host: header and converts them in ACE encoding.

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

SUBCLASSING
    Default ACE encoding is 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::RACE.

      package Apache::ACEProxy::RACE;

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

      sub encode {
          my($class, $domain) = @_;
          return to_race(utf8($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::RACE

CAVEATS
    This module (at least Apache::ACEProxy::RACE) assumes input domain
+ names
    are encoded in UTF8. But currently it's known that:

    *   MSIE's "always send URL as UTF8" preference does NOT ALWAYS se
+nd
        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 domain
+s for
    all the browsers.

    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 modi
+fy 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::RACE manpage
[download]

--
Tatsuhiko Miyagawa
miyagawa@cpan.org