I recently replaced a dying server with a new box, and am having trouble getting things to work. At least I got the named issues resolved. But I am having trouble with CGI scripts running, the httpd logs claim cgid:error ... permission denied. And I can't figure out why.

Are there some good sites with forums dedicated to Apache? A quick web search didn't turn up anything useful.

Thanks.

mjb.

I don't know if there are others but here is the main one...

https://httpd.apache.org/

What distribution/version is running on the new box?

Did you enable CGI in the apache configuration file?

https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/howto/cgi.html

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes. apache.org is the go-to domain for all things apache, which includes the web server.
I've bookmarked this.

Besides ExecCGI, permission errors can be caused by not having a file in the directory that is defined in DirectoryIndex and the Indexes directive is turned off.
And that may be the error seen if the file or directory is not readable by the apache/httpd user.

I'm running Server version: Apache/2.4.39 (Fedora) on Fedora 29. What is happening is that trying to bring up http://autox.team.net/mailman/listinfo is giving a 503 error. Any pages outside of the mailman directory work just fine.

mjb.

That's a different problem than the one in your original post, and probably the result of a configuration problem with your mailman installation rather than an apache issue per se
The GNU mailman wiki may help.

I'd suspect an issue with the integration to your MTA, but we'd need more information to be more specific.

Actually I am having problems with ALL cgi programs, not just the mailman ones. The mailman ones give the 503 error, others give a permission denied error as mentioned in my first post. This problem was discussed on the mailman users list, no solutions were forthcoming there. So I'm looking for other troubleshooting opnions, figured an Apache group might have some fresh ideas about it.

mjb.

not apache only, but web admin: http://www.webmasterworld.com/login.cgi
got some pretty good answers there a few times when i was in over my head.

Finally figured it out. The problem was the difference in the Apache CGI modules. If you use prefork MPM ( Multi Processing Modul ) you need to use mod_cgi. If you use worker MPM you need to use mod_cgid. The reverse combinations do not work. One will actually give you an error and not start the daemon, the other combination, which I had, will start the server and give no indication whatsoever about any problem, other than the 503 Service Unavailable code when trying to execute CGI programs.

And just a point of interest, I posted a description of the problem to the users@apache list, and 48 hours later no response whatsoever. Linuxquestions is WAY more helpful, thanks folks!

mjb.