Red Hat linux hosting question Urgent

[globefox]

I have 4 sites running beautifully on Apache Linux, but now need to run a site on Red Hat Linux server.

I am unable to configure the site or upload it as I am having problems with the path to Perl. RH Server require the use of "/usr/bin/perl-w" as the path, as this triggers security and reporting services. This cannot be switched off as it is a key feature. Perl is works with this setting, as this test script shows
http://85.124.188.123/cgi-bin/willow.pl

Just using "/usr/bin/perl" wil not work, which is a shame as that it what Actinic sems to be expecting. It seems unable to parse the "/usr/bin/perl-w" address, and cannot find perl.
As the client is a Red Hat reseller, the hosting really does have to be on RH Server.


Suggestions?

Lucy

[Bob Isaac]

I am running RHES Linux 4 with no problems. What RH ver are you running?

Bob

[I-CC]

The -w is for 'use warnings' which is normally used for diagnostics to get line numbers when your scripts are producing server errors and the like and generally switched off once you have fixed any issues and not something I have heard about being forced on cgi users, unless it is some feature/requirement of SELinux security elements?

Sorry not much more help on that one, but we use combinations of different linux distro's with RH amongst them and not come across this issue of needing a -w tag on the end.

[globefox]

Hello

Thank you for your help. The host is in Germany, and does not speak very good english, but I will try to find out the version ASAP.

Ths hosts are insistent that the link retain the "-w", although I agree it is overkill.

I am pleased to hear that others have run actinic on RH server. At worst, we may be able to find another RH host.

best,
Lucy

[I-CC]

I have never looked at this before to be honest, i.e. adding anything other than the usual /usr/local/bin etc etc, but I just added the extra -w into my v7 and generated the cgi scripts locally and when I checked them in notepad, they had the -w added into what would have been uploaded, so can you not just add the -w that you want within the network settings?

Like I say, never needed to do this here and have not uploaded obviously with any change, but my Actinic seems to allow the addition..

[globefox]

Hello again

Just to clarify, I am able to use both settings (with or without the "-w") in actinic, and have them appear in the scripts, but niether connect successfully to Perl. I get this error message

"Actinic is not able to run the CGI scripts on the server. It appears as if the scripts are not installed. The most likely cause is that you have an incorrect CGI-BIN URL....."

If I use the "-w" and copy the scripts to the server manually, they still don't work.

The dialog with the hosting human is continuing, but slowly, and I will raise this with actinic today.

Thank you again,
Lucy

[I-CC]

In some instances dependant on where they have installed and allow permissions on the perl, it may be a different path, like /usr/local/bin, but normally is how you have it...

[globefox]

Solved!

The solution: By default, Redhat Linux servers do not have ASCII uploads enabled - only BINARY. This means that the scripts are corrupted as they are uploaded as Actinic requires script files to be uploaded in ASCII.

To workaround this you have to enable ASCII transfers on the server. If you are a server administrator then do the following (if you are not a server administrator, then you will need to tell your web host to do the following).

Open the vsftpd.conf file. This may exist twice on the server, so edit the files in the following locations:

/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
/etc/vsftpd.conf

Within it, locate the line

ascii_upload_enable=YES

And uncomment it by removing the hash '#' from the beginning of the line.

Then you need to restart the xinetd service (and also the vsftpd service) and Actinic should upload correctly.

Ref: KB411 thank you for all your help

lucy