I have searched through all the web docs and Usenet, but not found anything that suggests anything special has to be done in mod_perl scripts that need to set $ENV{PATH}
My specific example is that I need to add /usr/local/bin to PATH, but I''ve been unable to find a way to do this, looks like mod_perl scripts execute the line that changes $ENV{PATH}, but when a qx() back-tick command is executed, that command is executed under the value of the original path. In case it helps, here's a simple test on Fedora FC7 system (more version info at end): #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n"; my $command = "basename"; foreach ( "/bin:", "/invalid/dir:" ) { $ENV{PATH} = $_; print "------ Testing command '$command', path $ENV{PATH}\n"; my $string = `$command testing` || ''; print " failed to execute '$command', \$? is $?/" . ($? >> 8) . " : $!\n" if ($? != 0); print " output \$string is: $string\n"; } exit(0); ------------------------------------------------ When run from the command line, I get the correct output: Content-type: text/plain ------ Testing command 'basename', path /bin: output $string is: testing ------ Testing command 'basename', path /invalid/dir: [Wed Jan 16 17:13:39 2008] script.pl: Can't exec "basename": No such file or directory at /home/cgi/script.pl line 12. failed to execute 'basename', $? is -1/16777215 : No such file or directory output $string is: ------------------------------------------------------- But when I run this under Apache and mod_perl, I get this output - /bin is still in the PATH even after removal: ------ Testing command 'basename', path /bin: output $string is: testing ------ Testing command 'basename', path /invalid/dir: output $string is: testing ------------------------------------------------------- /perl-status output snippet: Embedded Perl version v5.8.8 for Apache/2.2.6 Under the "perl-script" handler, the environment is: MOD_PERL = mod_perl/2.0.3 MOD_PERL_API_VERSION = 2 PATH = /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin Any help appreciated!