Apache :: I cannot get apache2 to work in debian7

itsmemo · Joined: 31 Jul 2015 Posts: 3 Location: Australia

Can anyone help me with this problem? I cannot make apache2.2 work in Debian 7, all the files are on the same laptop for testing, here are the files used (Debian splits the configuration file into a number of files as you probably know but only one needs to be modified to suit the user):
******root@asus:/etc/apache2/sites-enabled# ls -l
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 29 Aug 5 19:26 Peter_73.conf -> ../sites-available/Peter_73.conf
----apache2 only works if this symbolic link exists

******root@asus:/etc/apache2/sites-available# ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 Peter_73 users 762 Aug 4 20:51 default
-rw-r--r-- 1 Peter_73 users 7350 Jul 28 22:49 default-ssl
-rwxrwxrwx 1 Peter_73 users 1049 Aug 5 19:26 Peter_73.conf

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@asus.Peter_73
ServerName asus.Peter_73
ServerAlias www.asus.Peter_73
DirectoryIndex index_en.html
DocumentRoot /var/www/Peter_73
*
ErrorLog /var/www/Peter_73/log/error.log
CustomLog /var/www/Peter_73/log/access.log combined
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/www/Peter_73/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias "/cgi-bin/" "/usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin/"# was tried first without quotes
<Directory "/usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin"># was tried first without quotes
AllowOverride None
Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>
***
</VirtualHost>

root@asus:/var/www/Peter_73/languages/en# apache2ctl configtest
Syntax OK

******The calling html/form scripts
root@asus:/var/www/Peter_73/languages/en# ls -l
-rw-r--r-- 1 Peter_73 users 235 Aug 5 22:16 form_test_pl.htm
-rw-r--r-- 1 Peter_73 users 188 Aug 5 19:31 form_test_yab.htm

----form_test_yab.htm
<html><body><head><title></title></head>
<form method="post" action="/cgi-bin/yabasic.cgi">
<input type="submit" value="Submit"></form></body></html>
----clicking this gives a "file not found" - any extension gives same result

----form_test_yab.htm
<html><body><head><title></title></head>
<form method="post" action="/usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin/yabasic.cgi">
<input type="submit" value="Submit"></form></body></html>
----clicking this prints the content of "yabasic.cgi" - any extension gives same result

----form_test_pl.htm
<html><body><head><title></title></head>
<form method="post" action="/cgi-bin/perl_try.pl">
<input type="submit" value="Submit"></form></body></html>
----clicking this gives a "file not found"

----form_test_pl.htm
<html><body><head><title></title></head>
<form method="post" action="/usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin/perl_try.pl">
<input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form></body></html>
----clicking this, browser asks to open or save - changing owner/extensions makes no difference

The 2 cgi scripts tried in /usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin/:
root@asus:/usr/local/bin/apache2/cgi-bin# ls -l
-rwxr-xr-x 1 Peter_73 users 76 Jul 30 21:26 perl_try.pl
-rwxr-xr-x 1 Peter_73 users 91 Jul 30 22:03 yabasic.cgi

----yabasic.cgi
#!/usr/local/bin/yabasic # (correct path)
print "Content-type: text/html"
print
print
print "It works."
end

----perl_try.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl # (correct path)
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Hello, World.";

Peter_73.conf has also been enabled with "a2ensite Peter_73.conf"
apache2 was restarted after each modification of the config file with "apache2ctl restart"
Peter_73 log says:::1 - - [05/Aug/2015:21:23:01 +0800] "GET /server-status HTTP/1.0" 200 1288 "-" "w3m/0.5.3+cvs-1.1055" which I think means it is OK
the logs in /var/log/apache2 never show anything and I have not found anything related to apache in any other log
I have ran out of ideas, there is probably a mistake somewhere but I can't see it.
Thank you for your help.

James Blond

You defined the logs to be in a different folder

ErrorLog /var/www/Peter_73/log/error.log
CustomLog /var/www/Peter_73/log/access.log combined

itsmemo · Joined: 31 Jul 2015 Posts: 3 Location: Australia

After many unsuccessful attempts, I followed instructions from hosting companies that use Debian 7 but the result was the same before I inserted these new lines.

James Blond

if you call apache2ctl -M you will see all loaded modules. Make sure that the cgi_module is loaded in apache.

If I remeber correctly in default debian there is conf-available/serv-cgi-bin.conf
and
mods-available/actions.conf

itsmemo · Joined: 31 Jul 2015 Posts: 3 Location: Australia

My last mistake was to call the cgi script in the wrong way, issuing "http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/whatever worked but I am sure I tried that, I must have had a mistake somewhere which I fixed without noticing in the many tries I had lasting a few days.

Thank you for your help.