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Greetings Monks,

I am trying to configure Apache2 to run mod-perl. I have done it several times in the past with Apache1. I seem to have mod-perl in Apache OK, but my perl is not running. After quite a bit of googling, experiments and a couple of books I seem to be at a dead end. The answer is easy, I just can't find it.

The details:
OS - Ubuntu Linux 6.10 Desktop
WEB SERVER - Apache2 via apt-get install apache2
MOD-PERL - via apt-get install libapache2-mod-perl2

I started with the Alias, SetHandler, PerlHandler combination as described on page 366 of O'Reilly's "Apache, The Definitive Guide" (3rd edition). After that many Googles and experiments have still not gotten me to the point of having mod-perl work. Some of the experiments are still "commented out" in my apache2.conf file, some have been removed.

I have several programs I wrote in the past for Apache1 and mod-perl. They have the "use cgi" type statements in them. For this set-up task I used the following "quick and dirty" test code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
print "\nTHIS IS A TEST\n";

When I try to access (run) the file using a browser I get the message "The file x.pl is of the type text/x-perl, and Mozilla does not know how to handle this file type. ... What should Mozilla do with this file?

To check on the health of mod-perl I attempted to access (run) a file that does not exist. The bottom of the error message page included the text "Apache/2.0.55 (Ubuntu) mod_perl/2.0.2 Perl/v5.8.8 Server at 192.168.10.21 Port 80". Since Apache posted "mod_perl" at the bottom of the page I believe I have mod perl correctly installed but the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file is not configured correctly. After lots of work I raise the white flag. I have made many attempts to get the configuration to work and I did restart Apache after each change. I have made attempts to execute code in both /var/www/cgi-bin and /var/www/perl. The lines of mine that are currently left in my apache2.conf file are:

PerlModule ModPerl::PerlRun
#Alias /perl/ /var/www/perl/

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /var/www/cgi-bin/
ScriptAlias /perl/ /var/www/perl/

<Location /perl>
   allow from all
   SetHandler perl-script
   AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
   #PerlHandler Apache::Registry
   #PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
   Options +ExecCGI
   PerlSendHeader On
</Location>
   
<Directory /var/www/perl>
   allow from all
   Options +ExecCGI
   #AddHandler cgi-script .pl
   #SetHandler perl-script 
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
</Directory>

<Location /cgi-bin>
   allow from all
   SetHandler perl-script
   AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
   #PerlHandler Apache::Registry
   #PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
   Options +ExecCGI
   PerlSendHeader On
</Location>

I'm sure I have a simple little problem. I just can't seem to hit upon the answer. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Bruce
The full /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file is here:

# Based upon the NCSA server configuration files originally by Rob McCool.
# Changed extensively for the Debian package by Daniel Stone <daniel@sfarc.net>
# and also by Thom May <thom@debian.org>.

# ServerRoot: The top of the directory tree under which the server's
# configuration, error, and log files are kept.
#
# NOTE!  If you intend to place this on an NFS (or otherwise network)
# mounted filesystem then please read the LockFile documentation
# (available at <URL:http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/core.html#lockfile>);
# you will save yourself a lot of trouble.

ServerRoot "/etc/apache2"

# The LockFile directive sets the path to the lockfile used when Apache
# is compiled with either USE_FCNTL_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT or
# USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT. This directive should normally be left at
# its default value. The main reason for changing it is if the logs
# directory is NFS mounted, since the lockfile MUST BE STORED ON A LOCAL
# DISK. The PID of the main server process is automatically appended to
# the filename. 

LockFile /var/lock/apache2/accept.lock

# PidFile: The file in which the server should record its process
# identification number when it starts.

PidFile /var/run/apache2.pid

# Timeout: The number of seconds before receives and sends time out.

Timeout 300

# KeepAlive: Whether or not to allow persistent connections (more than
# one request per connection). Set to "Off" to deactivate.

KeepAlive On

# MaxKeepAliveRequests: The maximum number of requests to allow
# during a persistent connection. Set to 0 to allow an unlimited amount.
# We recommend you leave this number high, for maximum performance.

MaxKeepAliveRequests 100

# KeepAliveTimeout: Number of seconds to wait for the next request from the
# same client on the same connection.

KeepAliveTimeout 15

##
## Server-Pool Size Regulation (MPM specific)
## 

# prefork MPM
# StartServers ......... number of server processes to start
# MinSpareServers ...... minimum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxSpareServers ...... maximum number of server processes which are kept spare
# MaxClients ........... maximum number of server processes allowed to start
# MaxRequestsPerChild .. maximum number of requests a server process serves
<IfModule prefork.c>
StartServers         5
MinSpareServers      5
MaxSpareServers     10
MaxClients          20
MaxRequestsPerChild  0
</IfModule>

# pthread MPM
# StartServers ......... initial  number of server processes to start
# MaxClients ........... maximum  number of server processes allowed to start
# MinSpareThreads ...... minimum  number of worker threads which are kept spare
# MaxSpareThreads ...... maximum  number of worker threads which are kept spare
# ThreadsPerChild ...... constant number of worker threads in each server process
# MaxRequestsPerChild .. maximum  number of requests a server process serves
<IfModule worker.c>
StartServers         2
MaxClients         150 
MinSpareThreads     25
MaxSpareThreads     75
ThreadsPerChild     25
MaxRequestsPerChild  0
</IfModule>

# perchild MPM
# NumServers ........... constant number of server processes
# StartThreads ......... initial  number of worker threads in each server process
# MinSpareThreads ...... minimum  number of worker threads which are kept spare
# MaxSpareThreads ...... maximum  number of worker threads which are kept spare
# MaxThreadsPerChild ... maximum  number of worker threads in each server process
# MaxRequestsPerChild .. maximum  number of connections per server process (then it dies)
<IfModule perchild.c>
NumServers           5
StartThreads         5
MinSpareThreads      5
MaxSpareThreads     10
MaxThreadsPerChild  20
MaxRequestsPerChild  0
AcceptMutex fcntl
</IfModule>

User www-data
Group www-data

# The following directives define some format nicknames for use with
# a CustomLog directive (see below).
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common
LogFormat "%{Referer}i -> %U" referer
LogFormat "%{User-agent}i" agent


# Global error log.
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log

# Include module configuration:
Include /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/*.load
Include /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/*.conf

# Include all the user configurations:
Include /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

# Include ports listing
Include /etc/apache2/ports.conf

# Include generic snippets of statements
Include /etc/apache2/conf.d/^.#*

#Let's have some Icons, shall we?
Alias /icons/ "/usr/share/apache2/icons/"
<Directory "/usr/share/apache2/icons">
    Options Indexes MultiViews
    AllowOverride None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

# Set up the default error docs.
#
# Customizable error responses come in three flavors:
# 1) plain text 2) local redirects 3) external redirects
#
# Some examples:
#ErrorDocument 500 "The server made a boo boo."
#ErrorDocument 404 /missing.html
#ErrorDocument 404 "/cgi-bin/missing_handler.pl"
#ErrorDocument 402 http://www.example.com/subscription_info.html
#

#
# Putting this all together, we can Internationalize error responses.
#
# We use Alias to redirect any /error/HTTP_<error>.html.var response to
# our collection of by-error message multi-language collections.  We use 
# includes to substitute the appropriate text.
#
# You can modify the messages' appearance without changing any of the
# default HTTP_<error>.html.var files by adding the line;
#
#   Alias /error/include/ "/your/include/path/"
#
# which allows you to create your own set of files by starting with the
# /usr/local/apache2/error/include/ files and
# copying them to /your/include/path/, even on a per-VirtualHost basis.
#

<IfModule mod_negotiation.c>
<IfModule mod_include.c>
    Alias /error/ "/usr/share/apache2/error/"

    <Directory "/usr/share/apache2/error">
        AllowOverride None
        Options IncludesNoExec
        AddOutputFilter Includes html
        AddHandler type-map var
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
        LanguagePriority en es de fr
        ForceLanguagePriority Prefer Fallback
    </Directory>

    ErrorDocument 400 /error/HTTP_BAD_REQUEST.html.var
    ErrorDocument 401 /error/HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED.html.var
    ErrorDocument 403 /error/HTTP_FORBIDDEN.html.var
    ErrorDocument 404 /error/HTTP_NOT_FOUND.html.var
    ErrorDocument 405 /error/HTTP_METHOD_NOT_ALLOWED.html.var
    ErrorDocument 408 /error/HTTP_REQUEST_TIME_OUT.html.var
    ErrorDocument 410 /error/HTTP_GONE.html.var
    ErrorDocument 411 /error/HTTP_LENGTH_REQUIRED.html.var
    ErrorDocument 412 /error/HTTP_PRECONDITION_FAILED.html.var
    ErrorDocument 413 /error/HTTP_REQUEST_ENTITY_TOO_LARGE.html.var
    ErrorDocument 414 /error/HTTP_REQUEST_URI_TOO_LARGE.html.var
    ErrorDocument 415 /error/HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE.html.var
    ErrorDocument 500 /error/HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR.html.var
    ErrorDocument 501 /error/HTTP_NOT_IMPLEMENTED.html.var
    ErrorDocument 502 /error/HTTP_BAD_GATEWAY.html.var
    ErrorDocument 503 /error/HTTP_SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE.html.var
    ErrorDocument 506 /error/HTTP_VARIANT_ALSO_VARIES.html.var

</IfModule>
</IfModule>

DirectoryIndex index.html index.cgi index.pl index.php index.xhtml

# UserDir is now a module
#UserDir public_html
#UserDir disabled root

#<Directory /home/*/public_html>
#	AllowOverride FileInfo AuthConfig Limit
#	Options Indexes SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNoExec
#</Directory>

AccessFileName .htaccess

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

UseCanonicalName Off

TypesConfig /etc/mime.types
DefaultType text/plain

HostnameLookups Off

IndexOptions FancyIndexing VersionSort

AddIconByEncoding (CMP,/icons/compressed.gif) x-compress x-gzip

AddIconByType (TXT,/icons/text.gif) text/*
AddIconByType (IMG,/icons/image2.gif) image/*
AddIconByType (SND,/icons/sound2.gif) audio/*
AddIconByType (VID,/icons/movie.gif) video/*

# This really should be .jpg.

AddIcon /icons/binary.gif .bin .exe
AddIcon /icons/binhex.gif .hqx
AddIcon /icons/tar.gif .tar
AddIcon /icons/world2.gif .wrl .wrl.gz .vrml .vrm .iv
AddIcon /icons/compressed.gif .Z .z .tgz .gz .zip
AddIcon /icons/a.gif .ps .ai .eps
AddIcon /icons/layout.gif .html .shtml .htm .pdf
AddIcon /icons/text.gif .txt
AddIcon /icons/c.gif .c
AddIcon /icons/p.gif .pl .py
AddIcon /icons/f.gif .for
AddIcon /icons/dvi.gif .dvi
AddIcon /icons/uuencoded.gif .uu
AddIcon /icons/script.gif .conf .sh .shar .csh .ksh .tcl
AddIcon /icons/tex.gif .tex
AddIcon /icons/bomb.gif core

AddIcon /icons/back.gif ..
AddIcon /icons/hand.right.gif README
AddIcon /icons/folder.gif ^^DIRECTORY^^
AddIcon /icons/blank.gif ^^BLANKICON^^


# This is from Matty J's patch. Anyone want to make the icons?
#AddIcon /icons/dirsymlink.jpg ^^SYMDIR^^
#AddIcon /icons/symlink.jpg ^^SYMLINK^^

DefaultIcon /icons/unknown.gif

ReadmeName README.html
HeaderName HEADER.html

IndexIgnore .??* *~ *# HEADER* RCS CVS *,t

AddEncoding x-compress Z
AddEncoding x-gzip gz tgz

AddLanguage da .dk
AddLanguage nl .nl
AddLanguage en .en
AddLanguage et .et
AddLanguage fr .fr
AddLanguage de .de
AddLanguage el .el
AddLanguage it .it
AddLanguage ja .ja
AddLanguage pl .po
AddLanguage ko .ko
AddLanguage pt .pt
AddLanguage no .no
AddLanguage pt-br .pt-br
AddLanguage ltz .ltz
AddLanguage ca .ca
AddLanguage es .es
AddLanguage sv .se
AddLanguage cz .cz
AddLanguage ru .ru
AddLanguage tw .tw
AddLanguage zh-tw .tw

LanguagePriority en da nl et fr de el it ja ko no pl pt pt-br ltz ca es sv tw


#AddDefaultCharset	ISO-8859-1

AddCharset ISO-8859-1  .iso8859-1  .latin1
AddCharset ISO-8859-2  .iso8859-2  .latin2 .cen
AddCharset ISO-8859-3  .iso8859-3  .latin3
AddCharset ISO-8859-4  .iso8859-4  .latin4
AddCharset ISO-8859-5  .iso8859-5  .latin5 .cyr .iso-ru
AddCharset ISO-8859-6  .iso8859-6  .latin6 .arb
AddCharset ISO-8859-7  .iso8859-7  .latin7 .grk
AddCharset ISO-8859-8  .iso8859-8  .latin8 .heb	
AddCharset ISO-8859-9  .iso8859-9  .latin9 .trk
AddCharset ISO-2022-JP .iso2022-jp .jis
AddCharset ISO-2022-KR .iso2022-kr .kis
AddCharset ISO-2022-CN .iso2022-cn .cis
AddCharset Big5        .Big5       .big5
# For russian, more than one charset is used (depends on client, mostly):
AddCharset WINDOWS-1251 .cp-1251   .win-1251
AddCharset CP866       .cp866
AddCharset KOI8-r      .koi8-r .koi8-ru
AddCharset KOI8-ru     .koi8-uk .ua
AddCharset ISO-10646-UCS-2 .ucs2
AddCharset ISO-10646-UCS-4 .ucs4
AddCharset UTF-8       .utf8

AddCharset GB2312      .gb2312 .gb 
AddCharset utf-7       .utf7
AddCharset utf-8       .utf8
AddCharset big5	       .big5 .b5
AddCharset EUC-TW      .euc-tw	
AddCharset EUC-JP      .euc-jp
AddCharset EUC-KR      .euc-kr
AddCharset shift_jis   .sjis

#AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
#AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

AddType application/x-tar .tgz

# To use CGI scripts outside /cgi-bin/:
#
#AddHandler cgi-script .cgi

# To use server-parsed HTML files
#
<FilesMatch "\.shtml(\..+)?$">
    SetOutputFilter INCLUDES
</FilesMatch>

# If you wish to use server-parsed imagemap files, use
#
#AddHandler imap-file map

BrowserMatch "Mozilla/2" nokeepalive
BrowserMatch "MSIE 4\.0b2;" nokeepalive downgrade-1.0 force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch "RealPlayer 4\.0" force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch "Java/1\.0" force-response-1.0
BrowserMatch "JDK/1\.0" force-response-1.0

#
# The following directive disables redirects on non-GET requests for
# a directory that does not include the trailing slash.  This fixes a 
# problem with Microsoft WebFolders which does not appropriately handle 
# redirects for folders with DAV methods.
#

BrowserMatch "Microsoft Data Access Internet Publishing Provider" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^WebDrive" redirect-carefully
BrowserMatch "^gnome-vfs" redirect-carefully 
BrowserMatch "^WebDAVFS/1.012" redirect-carefully

# Allow server status reports, with the URL of http://servername/server-status
# Change the ".your_domain.com" to match your domain to enable.
#
<Location /server-status>
    SetHandler server-status
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 192.168.20.210
</Location>

# Allow remote server configuration reports, with the URL of
#  http://servername/server-info (requires that mod_info.c be loaded).
# Change the ".your_domain.com" to match your domain to enable.
#
<Location /server-info>
    SetHandler server-info
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
    Allow from 192.168.20.210
</Location>

# Include the virtual host configurations:
Include /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/^.#*

PerlModule ModPerl::PerlRun
#Alias /perl/ /var/www/perl/

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin /var/www/cgi-bin/
ScriptAlias /perl/ /var/www/perl/

<Location /perl>
   allow from all
   SetHandler perl-script
   AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
   #PerlHandler Apache::Registry
   #PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
   Options +ExecCGI
   PerlSendHeader On
</Location>
   
<Directory /var/www/perl>
   allow from all
   Options +ExecCGI
   #AddHandler cgi-script .pl
   #SetHandler perl-script 
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
</Directory>

<Location /cgi-bin>
   allow from all
   SetHandler perl-script
   AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
   #PerlHandler Apache::Registry
   #PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
   PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
   Options +ExecCGI
   PerlSendHeader On
</Location>

In reply to mod-perl configuration under Apache2 by Bruce32903

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