Troubleshooting - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 10 SP2 - INSTALLATION AND ADMINISTRATION Installation Manual

trator trusts—allowing users to run their own scripts is generally not a good idea. It is
also recommended to do security audits for all scripts.
To make the administration of scripts as easy as possible, it is common practice to
limit the execution of CGI scripts to specific directories instead of globally allowing
them. The directives ScriptAlias and Option ExecCGI are used for configura-
tion. The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server default configuration does not allow execution
of CGI scripts from everywhere.
All CGI scripts run as the same user, so different scripts can potentially conflict with
each other. The module suEXEC lets you run CGI scripts under a different user and
group.
40.7.5 User Directories
When enabling user directories (with mod_userdir or mod_rewrite) you should
strongly consider not allowing .htaccess files, which would allow users to overwrite
security settings. At least you should limit the user's engagement by using the directive
AllowOverRide. In SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, .htaccess files are enabled
by default, but the user is not allowed to overwrite any Option directives when using
mod_userdir (see the /etc/apache2/mod_userdir.conf configuration file).

40.8 Troubleshooting

If Apache does not start, the Web page is not accessible, or users cannot connect to the
Web server, it is important to find the cause of the problem. Here are some typical
places to look for error explanations and important things to check.
First, rcapache2 (described in Section 40.3, "Starting and Stopping Apache"
(page 761)) is verbose about errors, so can be quite helpful if it is actually used for op-
erating Apache. Sometimes it is tempting to use the binary /usr/sbin/httpd2 for
starting or stopping the Web server. Avoid doing this and use the rcapache2 script
instead. rcapache2 even provides tips and hints for solving configuration errors.
Second, the importance of log files cannot be overemphasized. In case of both fatal and
nonfatal errors, the Apache log files, mainly the error log file, are the places to look for
causes. Additionally, you can control the verbosity of the logged messages with the
The Apache HTTP Server 781