Heinz,
> The -w option did it. #!/usr/bin/perl -w
>
> Thank you VERY much for all the help.
For the sake of knowing "what" the problem was, can you report what
the '-w' option told you in the error logs that helped you to solve
the problem ?
I'm guessing you had a Perl syntax problem, which would have been
found by simply running the script at the command line.
Thanks...Dan.
> > I am curious about something. You earlier said:
> > > > >
> > > > > Since I can run a standard shellscript, located in the cgi-bin
> > > directory, is
> > > > > there a security situation I missed re perl scripts specifically?
> >
> > does this mean that you can access the apache server via a browser and
> > cause a shell script located in the directory to be executed? Something
> > like http://myhost.com/cgi-bin/shellscript ? But that
> > http://myhost.com/cgi-bin/perlscript doesn't?
> >
> > If your perl is using libraries that aren't in the standard places, you
> > might need to use the Apache SetEnv directive, something like SetEnv
> > PERL5LIB /home/myhome/myperlstuff. Or alternatively PassEnv PERL5LIB
> > to ensure that the existing PERL5LIB gets passed along.
> >
> > Also, recommend that you add the "-w" option , e.g. #!/usr/bin/perl -w
> > This will cause perl warnings and errors to be printed to STDERR (which
> > will be the Apache error_log for cgi operations). It may give you some
> > more detail on problems specific to perl.
> >
> >
> > Hmm, wait, perhaps this is it... (although I would doubt it, since the
> > error message doesn't mention suexec...)
> >
> > The Mandrake v6.1 Apache installation comes with suexec enabled.
> > Perhaps yours does too. If so, it places a number of restrictions on
> > CGI scripts that may be tripping you up. Among the possibilities:
> >
> > if you are using Perl libraries that are found via the PERL5LIB
> > environmental variable, then they probably aren't found because a lot of
> > the environment doesn't get passed. Even the PATH variable gets set to
> > some minimalist value.
> >
> > the directory cannot be writeable, etc.
> >
> > It would be easy enough to see if this is related to the problem.
> > Temporarily rename /usr/sbin/suexec to something else, like
> > /usr/sbin/suexec.not
> >
> > anyway, the suexec documentation is at
> > /home/httpd/html/manual/suexec.html
