The following bug report arrived at Debian bugtracker (http://bugs.debian.org/644169). Since I am able to reproduce it with 2.0.5, I am forwarding it here for advice:
(note that I have omitted some parts, as well as the output of mp2bug. See the above URL for the full details if needed) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I'm unable to disable <Perl> sections, as described here: http://perl.apache.org/docs/2.0/user/config/config.html#C_Perl_Handler_ So, according to the documentation, I should be able to simply place the following in the server configuration. PerlOption -Sections When the option is placed in the server configuration, the following error message is printed to screen when using apache2ctl configtest: Syntax error on line 10 of /etc/apache2/conf.d/all_vhosts: Invalid per-server PerlOption: Sections Action 'configtest' failed. The Apache error log may have more information. The apache error log does not have any information. This option is not allowed in per-directory configurations, and if I try to do so, Apache provides the following error message (IP address and path mangled): [Mon Oct 03 16:11:28 2011] [alert] [client aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd] /home/dir/.htaccess: Invalid per-directory PerlOption: Sections (only allowed per-server) For my use, this bug is a security problem, as it makes it impossible to include mod_perl code to manage the Apache API in server configurations without permitting users to run Perl code in the same server, unless you also disable per-user configuration in .htaccess, which breaks other useful functionality. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= To reproduce the bug, add "PerlOptions -Sections"' to the global configuration or to any <VirtualHost> container. Thanks for any hints!