Re: Debian apache woes

2000-12-05 Thread Daniel Freedman

Erin,

Without thinking too hard about what's going on since I don't admin
apache, I'm wondering if your problem could not just be that
'/etc/.profile' should really be called '/etc/profile' .  I believe
the convention is that these types of files are dotfiles in users'
directories (so they won't have to see them without ls -a) but do not
have dot prefix in /etc/ directory where they apply systemwide.
However, maybe you just mistyped below and it really is correctly
named on your system.

HTH,

Daniel

 Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 00:14:59 -0500
 From: Eireann Lewy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
 Subject: Debian apache woes
 Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
 Content-Disposition: inline
 
 Okay. I am completely and utterly at a loss here.  I feel as if someone
 has stolen my brain because I should not be this stupid.  I am, however,
 a relative linux fledgling (I have been windows-free for about a year
 and a half on the outside, and that's if I take out various pitfalls but
 anyway...).
 
 I'm having the following problems:
 1) The worst:  Despite having umask 022 in /etc/.profile and everyone's
 personal .profiles, newly created directories are randomly getting bad
 perms.  This is bad because most of my users don't know what the hell
 permissions are, having none (except in very limited cases) in windows.
 I just taught my two main cronies about chmod 755 and 644 (for regular
 web files), but this shit can't keep happening.  (For FTPed files, I set
 up a umask in the wu-ftpd ftpaccess file to set things at 644 which
 seemed to work.)
 



Re: Debian apache woes

2000-12-05 Thread Alson van der Meulen
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 01:16:37PM -0500, Daniel Freedman wrote:
 
 Erin,
 
 Without thinking too hard about what's going on since I don't admin
 apache, I'm wondering if your problem could not just be that
 '/etc/.profile' should really be called '/etc/profile' .  I believe
it is called so
 the convention is that these types of files are dotfiles in users'
 directories (so they won't have to see them without ls -a) but do not
 have dot prefix in /etc/ directory where they apply systemwide.
 However, maybe you just mistyped below and it really is correctly
 named on your system.
 
 HTH,
 
 Daniel
 
  Date: Tue, 5 Dec 2000 00:14:59 -0500
  From: Eireann Lewy [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
  Subject: Debian apache woes
  Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
  Content-Disposition: inline
  
  Okay. I am completely and utterly at a loss here.  I feel as if someone
  has stolen my brain because I should not be this stupid.  I am, however,
  a relative linux fledgling (I have been windows-free for about a year
  and a half on the outside, and that's if I take out various pitfalls but
  anyway...).
  
  I'm having the following problems:
  1) The worst:  Despite having umask 022 in /etc/.profile and everyone's
  personal .profiles, newly created directories are randomly getting bad
  perms.  This is bad because most of my users don't know what the hell
  permissions are, having none (except in very limited cases) in windows.
  I just taught my two main cronies about chmod 755 and 644 (for regular
  web files), but this shit can't keep happening.  (For FTPed files, I set
  up a umask in the wu-ftpd ftpaccess file to set things at 644 which
  seemed to work.)
  
 
 
 -- 
 To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
 with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]

-- 
,---.
 Name:   Alson van der Meulen  
 Personal:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]   
 School:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
`---'
dd if=/dev/null of=/vmunix
-



Re: Debian apache woes

2000-12-05 Thread Ernest Johanson
 Except I suck at it.  I'm running debian potato (I run woody at home but
 I wouldn't trust it on a server till it's distributed officially) and
 apache 1.3.9. (I know, it is old, but it's the latest version in potato
 as far as I can see.)  

Keep trying. It really does get better.
 
 I'm having the following problems:
 1) The worst:  Despite having umask 022 in /etc/.profile and everyone's
 personal .profiles, newly created directories are randomly getting bad
 perms.  This is bad because most of my users don't know what the hell
 permissions are, having none (except in very limited cases) in windows.
 I just taught my two main cronies about chmod 755 and 644 (for regular
 web files), but this shit can't keep happening.  (For FTPed files, I set
 up a umask in the wu-ftpd ftpaccess file to set things at 644 which
 seemed to work.)

Randomly getting bad perms? That sounds strange. Is there a pattern to the
permissions? Do the users who get the bad perms always get the same
ones? Do whatever you can to reproduce the problem so that you can see it
happening and not just rely on the users' input.  Eliminate as many
variables as you can and often the solution will present itself. 

Make sure the file in /etc is named profile, not .profile.

Woud it be possible to consider changing ftp servers? I have used proftpd
and have seen that the configuration process is much easier than wu-ftp. 

 2) Periodically and randomly people alert me I can't FTP.  This seems
 to occassionally clear up or people just tell me I'm not having a
 problem anymore.  Since I can FTP fine, and can test the files I put
 there via FTP, I really can't see what the problem is for these people.
 Are they being stupid? I don't know, because it's now happened to two
 different people.

Does the machine have more than one network interface? If so, do an
nslookup and see what your DNS reports back. Check to see if you always
get the same IP address first (assuming more than one) or it reports them
in a different order with each lookup. If the ftp server  listens to a
particular IP address, ftp to the IP address and see what haapens.

 3) After having CGI scripts forbidden for a while I finally found the
 umpteenth place where I had  to put an ExecCGI in the apache config
 files and now every CGI script on the page (one for using finger to
 return e-mail addresses of people put into the search thing via a second
 page frame, and one for a message board) is run and returns internal
 errors. The error in /etc/logs/apache/error.log is that there is a
 premature ending of headers.

Check the script to make sure that before it sends any output back to the
client that it sends a header first. In Perl, the statement looks like so:

print Content-type: text/html\n\n;

The two newlines are essential. 

 I am not usually this stupid. Honestly.  I run my own machine virtually
 error-free. Apache is simply the bane of my fucking existance. Please
 give me ANY input  you can. I'm going away for a semester and my
 co-admin thought this would be fine until everything simultaneously
 decided to break this week. :P
 

Don't let the pressure get to you. Try to give yourself some
space. Remember that computers are relentlessly logical, even if it's a
logic not obvious at the time. A patient, disciplined approach of
assessing what you know about a problem, reducing it to the simplest
possible form and then proceeding to ask questions and try out different
hypotheses will often lead to the answer. And when it doesn't, then you
have valuable input to post a question to the list. 

Murphy's law will never be repealed.



Ernest Johanson
Web Systems Administrator
Fuller Theological Seminary




Debian apache woes

2000-12-04 Thread Eireann Lewy
Okay. I am completely and utterly at a loss here.  I feel as if someone
has stolen my brain because I should not be this stupid.  I am, however,
a relative linux fledgling (I have been windows-free for about a year
and a half on the outside, and that's if I take out various pitfalls but
anyway...).

So I'm going to this tiny liberal arts college where I am one of four
people I know who run linux on campus. I shit you not.  Most people
don't want to have to learn computers. So I am a small fish in a tiny
pond, making me one of the most knowledgable people here and this is how
I was selected to admin this student-run webserver which runs Linux. My
co-admin is very slowly learning small commands while she does most of
the HTML and I just, well, geek.

Except I suck at it.  I'm running debian potato (I run woody at home but
I wouldn't trust it on a server till it's distributed officially) and
apache 1.3.9. (I know, it is old, but it's the latest version in potato
as far as I can see.)  

I'm having the following problems:
1) The worst:  Despite having umask 022 in /etc/.profile and everyone's
personal .profiles, newly created directories are randomly getting bad
perms.  This is bad because most of my users don't know what the hell
permissions are, having none (except in very limited cases) in windows.
I just taught my two main cronies about chmod 755 and 644 (for regular
web files), but this shit can't keep happening.  (For FTPed files, I set
up a umask in the wu-ftpd ftpaccess file to set things at 644 which
seemed to work.)

2) Periodically and randomly people alert me I can't FTP.  This seems
to occassionally clear up or people just tell me I'm not having a
problem anymore.  Since I can FTP fine, and can test the files I put
there via FTP, I really can't see what the problem is for these people.
Are they being stupid? I don't know, because it's now happened to two
different people.

3) After having CGI scripts forbidden for a while I finally found the
umpteenth place where I had  to put an ExecCGI in the apache config
files and now every CGI script on the page (one for using finger to
return e-mail addresses of people put into the search thing via a second
page frame, and one for a message board) is run and returns internal
errors. The error in /etc/logs/apache/error.log is that there is a
premature ending of headers.

I am not usually this stupid. Honestly.  I run my own machine virtually
error-free. Apache is simply the bane of my fucking existance. Please
give me ANY input  you can. I'm going away for a semester and my
co-admin thought this would be fine until everything simultaneously
decided to break this week. :P

Erin