Apache2 With mod_fcgid And PHP5 On Ubuntu 11.10

[centurianii]

Hello there,

I'm trying to setup suexec in a cloud environment following this article: http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set...n-ubuntu-11.10
My question is simple: I don't want to use virtual domains as the author suggests but rather virtual subdomains in the form: john.superbhosting.com, alice.superbhosting.com etc.
Moreover, i don't want to reload again and again the apache2 server.
I've read the apache documentation for virtual domains and subdomains but how should apply all this to my Ubuntu 11.10 server?

Thank you in advance!

[falko]

I think this is what you're looking for: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/en/vhosts/mass.html

[centurianii]

Thank you Falco for your fast answer!

I'm aware of this link from Apache documentation but I have some questions there: Apache suggests the use of httpd.conf file whereas you suggest to write files at /var/www/ directory. Which approach is better?

Apache suggest to use mod_vhost_alias or mod_rewrite. Is some method better than the other? I think the first one is simpler.

There is another think I'm wondering about after reading this article some time ago: http://jp-larocque.livejournal.com/49475.html

The writer implies that some php can run under suExec with user writes and some other "non-userdir FastCGI scripts" to NOT use suEXEC. For that reason he gives a hack, a FastCGI wrapper hack script at /usr/local/sbin/fastcgi-suexec-hack:

#!/bin/sh
# This hack exists exclusively to work around the restriction that
# FastCGI wrappers (e.g. suEXEC) are an all-or-nothing ordeal.  Thou
# shalt not enable wrappers for userdirs but not for the whole site.
# Thou shalt not configure non-userdir FastCGI scripts to use suEXEC
# or thou shall suffer my wrath of mysterious suexec policy violation
# notices for 7 generations.
a php library 
username="$1"
group="$2"
application="$3"

case "$(pwd)/" in
/home/*/public_html/*)
	exec /usr/lib/apache2/suexec "$username" "$group" "$application";;
*)
	application_abs="$(readlink -f "$application")"
	exec "$application_abs";;
esac

(my first language is not English and I need Oxford dictionary to understand "thou shall"!!)

My question is this: can I mix user php code with user permissions with a php library that has boarder permissions and runs as a www-data or even a user from the sudoers group??
(some require_once headers should import the php library but what is required is the user NOT to be able to hack that library)

Thanks again!

[falko]

Originally Posted by centurianii

Thank you Falco for your fast answer!

I'm aware of this link from Apache documentation but I have some questions there: Apache suggests the use of httpd.conf file whereas you suggest to write files at /var/www/ directory. Which approach is better?

You're mixing things up - /var/www/ is the document root where you must upload your HTML, PHP files, images, etc. while httpd.conf (or apache2.conf) are configuration files for Apache.

[centurianii]

1)

Originally Posted by falko

You're mixing things up - /var/www/ is the document root where you must upload your HTML, PHP files, images, etc. while httpd.conf (or apache2.conf) are configuration files for Apache.

Yes, indeed!!
Correcting myself: you suggested to create files at /etc/apache2/sites-available/ in the form:

<VirtualHost *:80>
...
</VirtualHost>

whereas Apache suggests writing at httpd.conf....(?)
2)
At the wrapper script at /var/www/php-fcgi-scripts/web1/php-fcgi-starter, you wrote:

...
exec /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php

but look at my installation:

xxx@xxx:~$ ls -al /usr/lib/cgi-bin
total 7952
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root    4096 2012-06-11 22:24 .
drwxr-xr-x 56 root root   12288 2012-07-15 13:56 ..
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root      29 2012-06-11 22:24 php -> /etc/alternatives/php-cgi-bin
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root root 8112496 2012-05-04 02:01 php5

and

xxx@xxx:~$ ls -al /usr/bin
...
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root   root    8112496 2012-05-04 02:01 php5-cgi
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root   root         25 2012-06-11 22:24 php-cgi -> /etc/alternatives/php-cgi
...

...why calling /etc/alternatives/php-cgi-bin and not:

exec /usr/lib/cgi-bin/php5

or,

exec /usr/bin/php5-cgi

instead??

[centurianii]

Hi,

following Falco's tutorial I set up a new domain, I'll call it www.john.com and I tried to see the result when I hit my browser to www.john.com/info.php:

Title: 500 Internel Server Error
Message: Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@john.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

At my /var/log/apache2/error.log:

[Wed Aug 08 17:25:19 2012] [warn] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] (104)Connection reset by peer: mod_fcgid: error reading data from FastCGI server, referer: http://www.john.com/
[Wed Aug 08 17:25:19 2012] [error] [client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx] Premature end of script headers: info.php, referer: http://www.john.com/

From what I can see googling this error there is no simple solution or solution at all