[Tallahassee-pm] long time no mail

[It's me.]

Forgot to cc this last time...

On Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:23:01 -0500, Hector Holguin
<holguinh at homesandland.com> wrote:
> Hi, Rebekah,
> 
> Lets see what can we do about this...  But, remember, I am not a sys-admin
> "guru" =) and most of what I do is programming...
> 
> From reading your message and thinking of previous experiences, I get the
> feeling that the problem is actually happening on the web server before the
> scripts execute.  Problems in the configuration might prevent the web server
> from running certain scripts, although they run fine from the console.  So,
> with that said, I suggest we change our focus from the scripts to the
> configuration of the web server.

I spent some time Wednesday on the phone with the hosting company's
tech support.  The guy I talked to basically went through everything
that had already been tried, and then said that when they rebuilt
their server they had problems too and rolled back to a previous linux
kernel.  I had actually noticed the problems because a php script on
that server suddenly started misbehaving... turned out the regex was
ignoring the (i).  Anyway, it seems I'm just going to have to put
together another server.  Still, can't help trying...

> Assuming you are using Apache on a development environment, 

It's a production environment.  It was supposed to be a simple
transfer of the site from one server to another.  Ha!  lol

. I suggest you
> check to see if it is using the suEXEC module to control setuid operations
> (for more on this read:
> http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/1445/1/) and disable it
> temporarily as follows:
> 
> - Look for a file named 'suexec' (over here on Fedora C3 is under
> /usr/sbin/) and rename it.
> - Restart the web server via Plesk 7 or by running '/etc/init.d/httpd
> restart' as root.

I read the tutorial, being a compulsive tutorial reader, and by the
way damn you for making me bookmark far too many other tutorials, and
found the following:

Up until Apache version 1.3.11, there was no way to be sure where a
compiled Apache server is going to be looking for the suexec binary.
As of 1.3.11, though, it's part of the 'compiled modules' report
displayed by the '-l' switch:

    % /usr/local/web/apache/bin/httpd -l
    Compiled-in modules:
      http_core.c
      mod_so.c
    suexec: enabled; valid wrapper /usr/local/web/apache/bin/suexec

I called in and had someone do that for me, and the compiled modules
report didn't return any info on suexec at all.  Since plesk uses its
own directory structure and rewrites conf files on the fly, I'm not
entirely sanguine about the accuracy of the results, but since the
report was generated it's probably the right one.  I wasn't about to
try to walk anyone there through looking elsewhere for it or anything.
 I'll just have to wait till next time I go in, which might not be
till after the kids are back in school.  :o\

> If you can't find suEXEC or disabling it doesn't make a difference, then
> we'll need more info to keep going.

If you have something in mind already, what info should I try to
gather, assuming I haven't already started on a new server?  :o)

Thanks much!

Rebekah