in reply to Troubles with CGI

Just a guess: it could be selinux enabled web server, or one with some other security enhancements.

selinux provides different security contexts, and a CGI script is run with a "www-server" (don't know the exact name) security context and can't access files with other contexts, even when the file permissions would allow that.

So go and find out more about your environment - what kind of OS is this? does it use selinux? if yes, can you change the security context of the sample directory?

(Usually Red Hat servers come with selinux out of the box, don't know about others).

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Re^2: Troubles with CGI
by downer (Monk) on Feb 05, 2008 at 14:42 UTC
    i am using fedora core 4, and is seems you are exactly right! that helped a lot, thanks.
[reply]
      Given that, it's entirely possible that selinux may have also been the cause of your problems with not being able to do GETs from your CGI code. Might want to check whether your system's selinux config allows applications in the www-server (or whatever it's called) context to open outbound ports.
[reply]

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