Thanks for the lengthy response. I tried your script and it failed on the problem server, and succeeded on the working server. Given that, you are saying that if the issue is likely permissions. As stated in my original post, my script works at command line whether as root, or as the user that apache runs as. For the record, I am indeed testing on the same machine as the CGI is running. Same script, actually, with a use lib statement added to lead to our modules (a line usually provided by mod_perl).

I also tried running your test script with the shebang line pointing to any perl install I could find, as well as without a shebang line, using all of the different perl installs before the script name. Is there another way that permissions could be affecting this that I am not seeing, or can you suggest further tests to help me narrow this down? I also added the following line to your script:

print "\nVERSION:  ".`perl -v`."\n";

The version was always displayed as 5.8.0, regardless of what I tried to make it use (via shebang or command line). The perl installs appear to be different (not just symbolic links to one). The @INC array did change with each different shebang line:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.0
[download]

produce:

/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/i386-freebsd
/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/i386-freebsd
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
[download]

#!/usr/bin/perl5
#!/usr/bin/perl5.00503
[download]

produce:

/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/i386-freebsd
/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
/usr/libdata/perl/5.00503/mach
/usr/libdata/perl/5.00503
[download]

Update: Fixed shebang typos (second group).

Not sure if any of that helps at all...

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