[sf-perl] Perl host porting

Dan Boger dan at peeron.com
Thu Dec 18 12:34:31 PST 2008


Aside from mismatch module versions, and paths, it should be fairly simple
to port a script from host a to b.  My guess is that the web server
configuration is different between the two hosts though.  Sounds like in
your old host, the extension for execcgi was both .pl and .cgi, while on the
new one it's only cgi?

I'm sure there are other differences, I suggest you compare the two configs.

Dan

On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Walt Sanders <
wsanders at pacificwebdesign.org> wrote:

> Am I the only one finding Perl porting to different web hosts a problem?
>
> I have one rather large website with about 400 pages, containing much user
> interaction handled with probably 50 or 60 perl.cgi programs scattered about
> in many directories.  It all works beautifully.
>
> I recently thought to move the entire site to a different web host (for
> speed, cost and developer services improvements).  I actually thought I
> could just move it all and tweak a few paths possibly and be done.  So I
> tried putting up a few directories to see if everything will work ok.
>  Aaaaugh!  Perl won't work.
>
> First I find that permission must be precisely 755 instead of the previous
> 777 (this baffles me).  Then only .pl instead of .cgi. or both.  Ok,
> irritating, but not a big problem (I didn't ask them to reset it).  But then
> only some of the perl programs would run.
>
> Investigating, I start finding oddities like: program A works, program B
> doesn't.  I replace 100% of the content of program A with 100% of the
> content of program B, and program A then works fine.  I then rename program
> A to program B and it works fine.  OK, that one is fixed (not a clue as to
> why).  Hmmmmm.  If I take the original program B and simply change the name
> to program A (gotta work, right?), it doesn't work.
>
> I could list a dozen similarly silly tweaks that eventually got about half
> of the perl programs working, none of them having to do with the programming
> itself!  I then tried to port to a 3rd large web host, thinking the 2nd host
> had some strange settings on its Apache server.  There I found the same
> problem of very curious idiosyncrasies and curious illogical tweaks to make
> most of the Perl work, albeit different ones and none of it sensible.
>
> I'm wondering if I live alone in my own little world of "stay the hell away
> from perl if you want a peaceful life".  On the first host, I had found perl
> to be wonderfully easy to program, totally reliable, and generally rock
> solid in the field.  This is a sad development.  Can anyone enlighten me a
> little as to what is going on?
>
> I don't really want to change languages, Walt.
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-- 
Dan Boger
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