Little daft question: I recently recognized that apache2 (ISPConfig Webserver on port 80 with debian etch 4.0) doesn't handle german umlauts in filenames. Is this normal or is it misconfigured? I can't remember. For example: http://www.mydomain.tld/rücktritt.doc doesn't work because apache2 doesn't understand umlauts or mistranslate them as I can see in the apache error.log. For domain names I knew it's possible with a umlauts-capable browser, but as far as I can remember, apache handled umlauts correct in the URL earlier..
Umlauts in URL's must be URL-encoded to work properly. This is normally done by the webbrowser. Even umlauts in domains are not used directly and passed to apache, the webbrowser must encode the domain name as IDN. The domain name system and apache are not able to handle umlauts directly. Please have a look here for more information on conversions of domain names to PUNYCODE strings: http://www.denic.de/de/domains/idns/tool.jsp e.g. the domain "müller.de" is send as "xn--mller-kva.com".
