[MapServer-users] MS4W 5.2.1 (final) released! *Security Release*

[Jeff McKenna]

I'm very proud to announce that MS4W 5.2.1 is available at https://ms4w.com

Important: you must be sure to run the file "/tmp/vc_redist.86.exe" 
before installing Apache, if you are using the zip archive.

The history of changes is too long to paste here, so see it at 
https://ms4w.com/HISTORY.html . Of course the recent PHP 8.4.27 release 
is included, as well as some important security settings changed in the 
php.ini file.  You will notice security upgrades to many libraries. 
Also, *pygeoapi OGC API server* is also included now in every MS4W base 
install (!!)

**Critical**: this is a security release.  All users must follow the 
steps to secure your MS4W server installation, including by limiting 
user access to ms4w.conf (see 
https://ms4w.com/README_INSTALL.html#strongly-recommended-set-user-access-permissions-for-ms4w-conf 
).

**security policy**: you can find MS4W's security policy at the root of 
your MS4W 5.2.1 installation (SECURITY.txt) or online at 
https://ms4w.com/SECURITY.html   As shown by the many security upgrades 
included in 5.2.1, I realize how important security is for your 
production installation, and rest assured that I am working hard to 
improve security in MS4W always.

Several add-on packages were also upgraded (GeoMoose, Mapbender, etc.) 
and some enhancements to MS4W were made for those apps to run smoothly.

The setup.exe installer has been code signed for Windows security 
approval (as well as mapserv.exe & httpd.exe).

The Migration Guide is very useful for commands to test locally and 
notes to follow (I use this page to find commands constantly) 
https://ms4w.com/trac/wiki/MigrationGuide5.x

The README has been also updated of course, with special notes for 
enabling MapCache, pycsw, pygeoapi, Oracle plugins, GDAL/MapServer 
plugins etc. at https://ms4w.com/README_INSTALL.html

Thank you to those who have reported and provided feedback directly in 
the MS4W issue tracker, please continue to do so there (tip: I use this 
exact query link all-day every-day to view the tickets: 
https://ms4w.com/trac/report/1?sort=created&page=1&max=200 ). For 
important releases such as this, those tickets are my lifeline (whereas 
searching emails is impossible).  Please file all of your feedback, 
comments, and requests there, thank-you.

The MS4W dev server has also been updated, showcasing the MS4W apps at 
https://ms4w.dev

Thanks again everyone, for using MS4W!

Happy MapServ-ing to all,

-jeff


-- 
Jeff McKenna
GatewayGeo: Developers of MS4W, & offering MapServer Consulting/Dev
co-founder of FOSS4G
http://gatewaygeo.com/