This module manages database connections, in a manner optimised for the platform. On non-threaded platforms, it provides a persistent connection in the manner of classic LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql, Perl/PHP/Python). On threaded platform, it provides an altogether more scalable and efficient connection pool, as described in this article at ApacheTutor. Note that mod_dbd supersedes the modules presented in that article.

mod_dbd exports five functions for other modules to use. The API is as follows:

typedef struct {
    apr_dbd_t *handle;
    apr_dbd_driver_t *driver;
    apr_hash_t *prepared;
} ap_dbd_t;

/* Export functions to access the database */

/* acquire a connection that MUST be explicitly closed.
 * Returns NULL on error
 */
AP_DECLARE(ap_dbd_t*) ap_dbd_open(apr_pool_t*, server_rec*);

/* release a connection acquired with ap_dbd_open */
AP_DECLARE(void) ap_dbd_close(server_rec*, ap_dbd_t*);

/* acquire a connection that will have the lifetime of a request
 * and MUST NOT be explicitly closed.  Return NULL on error.
 * This is the preferred function for most applications.
 */
AP_DECLARE(ap_dbd_t*) ap_dbd_acquire(request_rec*);

/* acquire a connection that will have the lifetime of a connection
 * and MUST NOT be explicitly closed.  Return NULL on error.
 */
AP_DECLARE(ap_dbd_t*) ap_dbd_cacquire(conn_rec*);

/* Prepare a statement for use by a client module */
AP_DECLARE(void) ap_dbd_prepare(server_rec*, const char*, const char*);

/* Also export them as optional functions for modules that prefer it */
APR_DECLARE_OPTIONAL_FN(ap_dbd_t*, ap_dbd_open, (apr_pool_t*, server_rec*));
APR_DECLARE_OPTIONAL_FN(void, ap_dbd_close, (server_rec*, ap_dbd_t*));
APR_DECLARE_OPTIONAL_FN(ap_dbd_t*, ap_dbd_acquire, (request_rec*));
APR_DECLARE_OPTIONAL_FN(ap_dbd_t*, ap_dbd_cacquire, (conn_rec*));
APR_DECLARE_OPTIONAL_FN(void, ap_dbd_prepare, (server_rec*, const char*, const char*));

mod_dbd supports SQL prepared statements on behalf of modules that may wish to use them. Each prepared statement must be assigned a name (label), and they are stored in a hash: the prepared field of an ap_dbd_t. Hash entries are of type apr_dbd_prepared_t and can be used in any of the apr_dbd prepared statement SQL query or select commands.

It is up to dbd user modules to use the prepared statements and document what statements can be specified in httpd.conf, or to provide their own directives and use ap_dbd_prepare.

Any web/database application needs to secure itself against SQL injection attacks. In most cases, Apache DBD is safe, because applications use prepared statements, and untrusted inputs are only ever used as data. Of course, if you use it via third-party modules, you should ascertain what precautions they may require.

However, the FreeTDS driver is inherently unsafe. The underlying library doesn't support prepared statements, so the driver emulates them, and the untrusted input is merged into the SQL statement.

It can be made safe by untainting all inputs: a process inspired by Perl's taint checking. Each input is matched against a regexp, and only the match is used, according to the Perl idiom:

  $untrusted =~ /([a-z]+)/;
  $trusted = $1;

To use this, the untainting regexps must be included in the prepared statements configured. The regexp follows immediately after the % in the prepared statement, and is enclosed in curly brackets {}. For example, if your application expects alphanumeric input, you can use:

with other drivers, and suffer nothing worse than a failed query. But with FreeTDS you'd need:

Now anything that doesn't match the regexp's $1 match is discarded, so the statement is safe.

An alternative to this may be the third-party ODBC driver, which offers the security of genuine prepared statements.