The mailing list for listmasters using Sympa

["Adam Bernstein" <address@concealed>]

Just to get this into the list archives (I'll submit it to the FAQ too,
but it would really be nice to see a compiled set of answers to these
WWSympa installation problems):

After installing the updated Apache, on FreeBSD 4.3, my WWSympa was dead
and I was getting the familiar repeated start-and-stop in www/logs/error_log:

[Sat Jul 27 20:01:20 2002] [notice] Apache/1.3.26 (Unix) mod_fastcgi/2.2.12 
PHP4.0.6 configured -- resuming
normal operations
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:20 2002] [notice] suEXEC mechanism enabled (wrapper: 
/home/www/bin/suexec)
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:20 2002] [notice] Accept mutex: flock (Default: flock)
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:20 2002] [warn] FastCGI: server 
"/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi" (uid 1010, gid 1010) started
(pid 51997)
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:20 2002] [warn] FastCGI: server 
"/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi" (pid 51997) terminated by
calling exit with status '114'
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:25 2002] [warn] FastCGI: server 
"/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi" (uid 1010, gid 1010)
restarted (pid 51998)
[Sat Jul 27 20:01:25 2002] [warn] FastCGI: server 
"/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi" (pid 51998) terminated by
calling exit with status '114'
...

Smelled like a suexec problem, and I finally found these in suexec_log:

2002-07-27 20:01:19]: info: (target/actual) uid: (sympa/sympa) gid: 
(sympa/sympa) cmd: wwsympa.fcgi
[2002-07-27 20:01:19]: error: command not in docroot 
(/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi)
[2002-07-27 20:01:20]: info: (target/actual) uid: (sympa/sympa) gid: 
(sympa/sympa) cmd: wwsympa.fcgi
[2002-07-27 20:01:20]: error: command not in docroot 
(/home/sympa/bin/wwsympa.fcgi)
...

The problem is that suexec, for security reasons, will only suexec
scripts that are found in a single directory, with the path given by the
"suexec-docroot" parameter in Apache.  This parameter is controlled at Apache
compilation time, so I had to go back and recompile apache, using this
configuration line (for DSO install):

./configure --enable-suexec --suexec-userdir=bin 
--suexec-docroot=/home/sympa/bin

There are some other things that would cause these repeated attempts by
FastCGI to start wwsympa.fcgi, but suexec configuration and compilation
is a good place to start.

    adam
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"By cutting off the opportunity for exoneration, [the federal death penalty] 
denies due process and, indeed,
is tantamount to foreseeable, state-sponsored murder of innocent human 
beings."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/01/nyregion/01CND-DEAT.html