Re: running Perl CGI using mod_perl 2 and suexec?

[Malcolm J Harwood <mj...@liminalflux.net>]

On Friday 22 September 2006 18:25, Laurent MARTIN wrote:

> First of all this is my very first post on this mailing list. I've
> browsed the web but I haven't been able to find the answer I'm
> looking for, so...
> ...my question: is it possible to run a Perl (5.8.6) CGI using Apache
> 2.2.3 w/ mod_perl 2.0.2 and suexec enabled? It seems that the answer
> is "no!" w/ mod_perl 1, but what about mod_perl 2?

Still no.

> Apache 2 is configured with www/www as "normal" user/group and the
> virtualhost in which mod_perl 2.0.2 is enabled is configured (using
> suexec) with laurent/laurent as user/group. With these settings, a
> simple Perl CGI is not able to create a file in a directory owned by
> laurent/laurent but a simple CGI script written in Shell can do it :-/

If you are running perl as a CGI script, it creates a separate process each 
time, which allows that script to be run as a different user. If you are 
running mod_perl, the perl interpreter is embedded in the apache process and 
thus runs as whatever user apache is running as.

If you need both mod_perl and your perl to run as different users you'd have 
to run one instance of apache per user, as that user, and a reverse proxy to 
farm off the requests to the appropriate server.


-- 
"Program testing can at best show the presence of errors, but never their 
absence."
- Edsger W. Dijkstra