our $status = hiGuiStatus->new();
our $userid = $status->get_ldap_user_name();

To fix this set $userid in the handler.

I would imagine this is a Apache child problem. I'll try to expalin:

Apache is inheritedly and relitively multi-threaded. And, depending on your configuration and such, you will expect to have many threads open at any given time. The threads are usually called 'Children' or 'Apache Children'. Each of these children are used to load pages and send the data back to the requestor.

Given this quick tutorial, it sounds to me like you are loading the LDAP user name globally to each child. Then when the user goes to the next page, the page is loaded through another child that is no longer aware of the $userid. However, in the same sense, the $userid is still defined, however in another child. Therefore, when another user comes along and loads the page, if they grab the same child as the user before them did, they would already have the $userid from the last user.

Generally speaking, this is not the best way to hold persistant session data. Mainly because Apache, and all web servers for that matter, do not have the ability to uphold any type of persistance via the net. Perhaps the best way to hold this type of information in a semi-secure and easily retrievable way is through the assignement of a cookie or other persistance mechagnism.

Answer:
Don't use Perl variables within a Child to store user session information. It will, almost certainly, be shared to different requestors as the uptime of the server continues to grow.

These might give you some more answers, too. Take a look at them in the order I've listed them:

• Apache::Session
• Apache::Connection
• Apache::Request
• Configuring mod_perl
• mod_perl Home
Good Luck

---hA||ta----
print map{$_.' '}grep{/\w+/}@{[reverse(qw{Perl Code})]} or die while ( 'trying' );

hum... If it wasn't in the handler, than none of the code would execute (since it's all at the same level), and he'd see nothing at all (or rather a 500 HTTP error). I suspect he's using Apache::Registry, in which case the code *is* in the handler.

With Apache::Registry, the script gets converted to a function which is called every time the page is requested.

I bet the problem is in his hiGuiStatus module.

By the way rsennat, our isn't needed here. my will suffice and it would be a better choice here. The problem in the previous thread is that you were using a my variable as a global, which is a no-no in mod_perl. Here, they're not used as globals.

hi,
i need this to be resolved. because there is no persistency in getting the logged in user's info.

this code is in a separate .cgi file and not in a handler to execute from the browser, which will display the user's info.

im using PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::RegistryPrefork in httpd.conf.

Only in mod_perl i see this problem. Even in perl/cgi environment im using the module hiGuiStatus.pm, where there is no problem.

thanks
rsennat

Sorry if im asking the very basic. I have just started using mod_perl.
So, where to set $userid??

thanks

The problem that you're running into isn't really one of keeping a value shared, it's one of making sure you have the same value for the same browser session. Since HTTP is stateless, you have to have the browser pass back to the server on each request (either via cookie or URL parameter) the unique identifier of the session.

It's Monday AM...let's see if I can whip out a working example.

use Apache::Cookie;
use Apache::Session::File;

# Inside your mod_perl handler

my $cookie = Apache::Cookie->new($r,
    -name    =>  'session_id',
    -expires =>  '+1D',
    -domain  =>  'mysite.com',
    -path    =>  '/'
);

my %session;
my $session_id = $cookie->value;

# The tie will fail if the session_id isn't valid or is missing.  Thus
+ the need for eval.
eval {
    tie(%session,'Apache::Session::File',$session_id, { Directory => '
+/tmp', LockDirectory => '/tmp' });
};
if ($@) {
    # bogus session_id.  Setting it to undef will cause Apache::Sessio
+n to create a new one
    undef $session_id;
    tie(%session,'Apache::Session::File',$session_id, { Directory => '
+/tmp', LockDirectory => '/tmp') || die "say something useful";
}

if ($session_id != $cookie->value) {
    # session id has changed or is a new one; update the cookie
    $cookie->value($session_id);
    $cookie->bake;
}

# use %session at will to store user data.

$session{'name'} = 'John Doe';
$session{'user_id'} = 123;

my $value = $session{'some_data'};

# untie the session after you're done with it
untie %session;
[download]

Edit: Typos, add links to cpan

hi wazzuteke, maverick, already im maintaining a session, using CGI::Session. So i will try storing the user info in the session and retrieve it from there.

but whats the solution in using global variables with mod_perl

because i have one more problem too. like in the HTML::Template im passing some data. Only in mod_perl, i see that after every reload of the page, the data displayed gets repeatedly displayed. this happens for every reload.

thanks
rsennat

This is somewhat of a tricky question. Assuming you're running Apache on *nix, each child will be forked off into it's own process. Therefore, if you make a variable global, it will only be global to that child. However, if you make the same variable name global in each child to the same value (via a database, or something similar), then you will have some sort of psudo-global variable. Nonetheless, to have a variable that is global to the Parent and each child is not possible; at least from my knowledge of mod_perl and Apache (someone correct me if I'm wrong here).



---hA||ta----
print map{$_.' '}grep{/\w+/}@{[reverse(qw{Perl Code})]} or die while ( 'trying' );