Running CGI With Perl under Apache Permission Problem

Question

I have the following entry under apache2.conf in my Debian box.

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
Options +ExecCGI
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin/

<Directory /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin>
Options +ExecCGI -Indexes
allow from all
</Directory>

Then I have a perl cgi script stored under these directories and permissions:

nvs@somename:/var/www/mychosendir$ ls -lhR 
.:
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 2 nvs nvs 4.0K 2010-04-21 13:42 cgi-bin

./cgi-bin:
total 4.0K
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nvs nvs 90 2010-04-21 13:40 test.cgi

However when I tried to access it in the web browser:

http://myhost.com/mychosendir/cgi-bin/test.cgi

They gave me this error:

[Wed Apr 21 15:26:09 2010] [error] [client 150.82.219.158] (8)Exec format error: exec of '/var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin/test.cgi' failed
[Wed Apr 21 15:26:09 2010] [error] [client 150.82.219.158] Premature end of script headers: test.cgi

What's wrong with it?

Update:

I also have the following entry in my apache2.conf:

<Files ~ "^\.ht">
    Order allow,deny
    Deny from all
</Files>

And the content of test.cgi is this:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Hello, world!\n";

Solution

Make sure you have a <Directory> section for the cgi-bin directory. And make sure "allow from all" is in it.

<Directory /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin>
    Options +ExecCGI -Indexes
    allow from all
</Directory>

Also...your ScriptAlias is for /cgi-bin/. Your URL is /mychosendir/cgi-bin. Unless you have some rewrite magic going on, your url should probably be http://my.host.com/cgi-bin/test.cgi , or you'll need to change your ScriptAlias line to look like

ScriptAlias /mychosendir/cgi-bin/ /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin

The error you posted in your update, sounds like you don't have a #! line at the beginning of your script. You'll need one, and it should look like

#!/path/to/your/perl

Comments

[neversaint]

@cHao: Sorry I don't get it. As I pointed out in OP I already have cgi-bin directory with the right permisson (a+x).

[neversaint]

How do I check and enable that?

[Michalis]

The directory is there, but unless you have a section in the config file that grants access to it, Apache won't let you see it.

[neversaint]

@cHao: Thanks but how can I change the config to grant access?

[Michalis]

Updated my answer. Reread. :)

[neversaint]

I modified the Script alias to ScriptAlias /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin/ /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin/ and add the <Directory> section exactly like yours. But now it give internal server error instead. And BTW, I do really want my url to be http://myhost.com/mychosendir/cgi-bin/test.cgi instead of removing the mychosendir.

[Michalis]

The first thing in the ScriptAlias directive is the url you want to refer to that directory. So you'll probably want to get rid of the first /var/www in your ScriptAlias line.

[neversaint]

It does have. See my update on the test.cgi code.

[neversaint]

You mean like this: ScriptAlias /mychosendir/cgi-bin/ /cgi-bin/ . Sorry please be patient with me.

[Htbaa]

First find out as which user Apache is running. This can be done by checking your httpd.conf or apache2.conf - look for the User and Group settings. Next, ls -al /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin to see the permissions and file owner. The user under which Apache is running must have access to these files. They should also contain the execute bit.

[neversaint]

I really want it to be accessed here: http://myhost.com/mychosendir/cgi-bin/test.cgi. Then how should I modify the ScriptAlias? I also tried this ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /mychosendir/cgi-bin/ but internal server error.

[Michalis]

I mean like this: ScriptAlias /mychosendir/cgi-bin/ /var/www/mychosendir/cgi-bin/

[Michalis]

I see it. I'm running the same code on one of my servers right now, so IF your perl is at /usr/bin/perl, then the script should be fine.