Enabling CGI using XAMPP for Mac OS X

[Shuraski]

Is anyone experienced at enabling CGI using XAMPP for Mac OS X? I would like to use perl to execute scripts from cgi-bin/. After having read the on-line manuals, asked around, and read the on-line manuals again, the server is still giving me:

Error 403 Access forbidden! You don't have permission to access the requested object. It is either read-protected or not readable by the server.

Which obviously tells me this is a permissions issue.

I believe my permissions are correct:

In cgi-bin/

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 43 Jan 28 07:06 form_query.pl

In the error_log:

in error_log: Options ExecCGI is off in this directory/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/cgi-bin/form_query.pl

So, I go to httpd.conf to turn ExecCGI on:

Lines from httpd.conf file:

ScriptAliasMatch ^/cgi-bin/((?!(?i:webobjects)).*$) "/Library/WebServe
+r/CGI-Executables/$1"

(That looks funny, btw, but I have not changed it...

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
# "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables" should be changed to whatever y
+our ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
#
<Directory "/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables">
    AllowOverride None
    Options ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
 </Directory>

That did not work, so I tried enabling CGI in the directory that my cgi executable files are in:

<Directory "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/cgi-bin/">
    AllowOverride None
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

But still the 403 error persists

Could the problem be here? When calling ls -l in the XAMPP directory:

drwxr-xr-x   3 user  admin  102 Aug 16 07:35 XAMPP Control.app
lrwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin   18 Sep 27 09:49 cgi-bin -> xamppfiles/cgi
+-bin
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 user  admin   14 Sep 27 09:49 etc -> xamppfiles/etc
lrwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin   17 Sep 27 09:49 htdocs -> xamppfiles/htdo
+cs
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 user  admin   15 Sep 27 09:49 logs -> xamppfiles/logs
drwxr-xr-x@ 23 root              admin  782 Aug 16 07:36 xamppfiles

Is there a problem with the Symlinks? Any help would be very much appreciated.

I am running Mac OS X 10.5.7, with XAMPP for Mac OS X (Apache 2.0, Perl5, mod_perl 2.0.4)

Thank you!

[juster]

edit: My original post below is besides the point! The httpd.conf original content you typed is identical to the default httpd.conf for Mac OS X's included apache server. I just now found this when I decided it was time to configure my own Mac OS X 10.6's web.

This leads me to believe you are editing the wrong httpd.conf. Which file are you editing? The httpd.conf under /etc is for the included apache and (according to XAMPP's website) XAMPP's is located at /Applications/XAMPP/etc/httpd.conf. A first step would be to make sure XAMPP's apache is not conflicting with Mac OS X's included web server.

Original post follows:

In your <Directory> directive, the directory in quotes is where the symlink points to, not the name of the symlink:

<Directory "/Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/cgi-bin/">
...
lrwxr-xr-x   1 user  admin   18 Sep 27 09:49 cgi-bin -> xamppfiles/cgi
+-bin

Maybe if you change to "/Applications/XAMPP/cgi-bin" inside the <Directory directive, Apache will be happy.

Here is a quote from the manual about the FollowSymLink option:

Note: even though the server follows the symlink it does not change the pathname used to match against <Directory> sections.

[Shuraski]

I think you are right. With XAMPP installed, there are now 2 Apache configurations present. Obviously important to keep httpd.conf files straight. I will go sort this out.

Is it enough to simply have Mac's original Apache turned off while using XAMPP to avoid conflicts?

Thanks for catching this!

[juster]

Ya I think you are right. Turn off Web Sharing or have the XAMPP server listen on a different port and you should be okay.

[7stud]

A) Don't touch the system install of Apache.

B) Are you aware that you have to stop and re-start Apache for the changes to take effect?

C) Before proceeding any further, read the following at the Apache website:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/cgi.html

D) Here are some relevant sections from my httpd.conf that may help you (not listed in any specific order). I installed Apache 2.2.4 in the directory /Library on mac osx 10.4.11:

1)
DocumentRoot "/Library/Apache2/htdocs"


2)
# First, we configure the "default" to be a very restrictive set of 
# features.  
#
<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
    Order deny,allow
    Deny from all
</Directory>

#
# Note that from this point forward you must specifically allow
# particular features to be enabled - so if something's not working as
# you might expect, make sure that you have specifically enabled it
# below.


3)
<IfModule alias_module>
    #
    # Redirect: Allows you to tell clients about documents that used t
+o 
    # exist in your server's namespace, but do not anymore. The client
+ 
    # will make a new request for the document at its new location.
    # Example:
    # Redirect permanent /foo http://www.example.com/bar

    #
    # Alias: Maps web paths into filesystem paths and is used to
    # access content that does not live under the DocumentRoot.
    # Example:
    # Alias /webpath /full/filesystem/path
    #
    # If you include a trailing / on /webpath then the server will
    # require it to be present in the URL.  You will also likely
    # need to provide a <Directory> section to allow access to
    # the filesystem path.

    #
    # ScriptAlias: This controls which directories contain server scri
+pts. 
    # ScriptAliases are essentially the same as Aliases, except that
    # documents in the target directory are treated as applications an
+d
    # run by the server when requested rather than as documents sent t
+o the
    # client.  The same rules about trailing "/" apply to ScriptAlias
    # directives as to Alias.
    #

    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/Library/Apache2/cgi-bin/"

</IfModule>


4)
<IfModule mime_module>
    #
    # TypesConfig points to the file containing the list of mappings f
+rom
    # filename extension to MIME-type.
    #
    TypesConfig conf/mime.types

    #
    # AddType allows you to add to or override the MIME configuration
    # file specified in TypesConfig for specific file types.
    #
    #AddType application/x-gzip .tgz
    #
    # AddEncoding allows you to have certain browsers uncompress
    # information on the fly. Note: Not all browsers support this.
    #
    #AddEncoding x-compress .Z
    #AddEncoding x-gzip .gz .tgz
    #
    # If the AddEncoding directives above are commented-out, then you
    # probably should define those extensions to indicate media types:
    #
    AddType application/x-compress .Z
    AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz

    #
    # AddHandler allows you to map certain file extensions to "handler
+s":
    # actions unrelated to filetype. These can be either built into th
+e server
    # or added with the Action directive (see below)
    #
    # To use CGI scripts outside of ScriptAliased directories:
    # (You will also need to add "ExecCGI" to the "Options" directive.
+)
    #
    #
 
    # I uncommented the following line and added '.pl' to the end of i
+t:

    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl


5) 

# Below I changed AllowOverride from None to FileInfo to get mod_pytho
+n
# CGI Handler to work with a .htaccess file in the cgi-bin directory.
#
<Directory "/Library/Apache2/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride FileInfo
    Options None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

[Shuraski]

Listen, thanks to all above for the help. Yes, the problem was entirely that I was editing the wrong copy of httpd.conf -- quite stupid of me. Now have configured the correct version of the file, and CGI executes normally.

Thank you again for the assistance!

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi Shuraski! You have found the way to enable CGI. Please can you write it stepwise Regards

[Anonymous Monk]

Probably faq in the A manual :)