Mailing List Archive: configuring my new mod

Doug and Lincoln (and maybe Rob)... there's still some part of your
brain that's never made it into the docs about <Perl> sections. I
tried to get www.stonehenge.com configured entirely in Perl, and kept
stumbling on "do I need a variable, a hash element, a listref, a
hashref, a list of hashrefs, or WHAT???" as I looked at each command.
Then I got to "SSLEnable" and threw my hands up. No parameters! What
do I do with THAT?

But, thank the maker for Apache->http_conf! I can write stuff that
looks a lot like my existing files, and then add a little Perl magic
when needed. In the main httpd.conf, I put:

<Perl>
do "/home/merlyn/lib/Apache/.httpd.pl";
</Perl>

and a hint here... that file has to return 1, even though it's a do,
because I'm also using Apache::StatINC (ugh!). And here's the
contents of that file:

## configuration for www.stonehenge.com

package Apache::ReadConfig; # in case that isn't set

for my $host (qw(w3.stonehenge.com:80 w3.stonehenge.com:443)) {
Apache->httpd_conf(<<"END");

Listen $host

<VirtualHost $host>

ServerAdmin webmaster\@stonehenge.com
DocumentRoot /WWW/stonehenge/htdocs
ServerName $host
DirectoryIndex index index.html Welcome.html
ErrorLog /WWW/stonehenge/logs/error_log
TransferLog /WWW/stonehenge/logs/access_log

@{[join "", map <<THIS, qw(/cgi-bin/ /cgi/)]}
ScriptAlias $_ /WWW/stonehenge/cgi-bin/
THIS

RewriteEngine on

@{[join "", map <<THIS, qw(htdocs cgi-bin)]}
<Directory /WWW/stonehenge/$_>
AllowOverride All
Options All
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
THIS

ProxyRequests On

Redirect /~merlyn/ http://$host/merlyn/

ErrorDocument 404 /cgi/404-handler

XbitHack full

<FilesMatch "^\\.|~\$">
deny from all
</FilesMatch>

AddType text/plain pod

@{[$host eq "w3.stonehenge.com:443" && <<THIS]}
SSLEnable
SSLRequireSSL
SSLLogFile logs/ssl_log
THIS

</VirtualHost>
END
}

"true";

Notice that I'm configuring my SSL and non-SSL host nearly identically
(that's the original reason for the <Perl> section), and I'm using
*some* of the tricks you gave in the examples, but "inside out",
because I'm starting with a text string and working my way towards
httpd format, not a Perl variable. This all could have been put
inside the <Perl> section in httpd.conf, but I want separate RCS
tracking for the two files. (I'm only a virtual webmaster, not the
site webmaster. :)

Anyway, for those of you that wanted Perl to do your configuration,
but couldn't quite grok the <Perl> sections, try this hybrid approach.
Just watch out for all $, @, and \ in your here-docs.

--
Name: Randal L. Schwartz / Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095
Keywords: Perl training, UNIX[tm] consulting, video production,
skiing, flying
Email: <merlyn@stonehenge.com> Snail: (Call) PGP-Key: (finger merlyn@teleport.com)
Web: <A HREF="http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/">My Home Page!</A>
Quote: "I'm telling you, if I could have five lines in my .sig, I
would!" -- me

At 11:39 AM 8/27/98 -0700, Randal Schwartz wrote:
>
>Doug and Lincoln (and maybe Rob)... there's still some part of your
>brain that's never made it into the docs about <Perl> sections. I
>tried to get www.stonehenge.com configured entirely in Perl, and kept
>stumbling on "do I need a variable, a hash element, a listref, a
>hashref, a list of hashrefs, or WHAT???" as I looked at each command.
>Then I got to "SSLEnable" and threw my hands up. No parameters! What
>do I do with THAT?

I think $SSLEnable = 1 would work. I have a plan to document how to
represent all Apache configuration in Perl, will happen soonish.

>But, thank the maker for Apache->http_conf! I can write stuff that
>looks a lot like my existing files, and then add a little Perl magic
>when needed. In the main httpd.conf, I put:

Apache->httpd_conf (which just pushes into
@Apache::ReadConfig::PerlConfig), came to life during the early 1.3bx
stages, another area that needs better docs :-/

cool, thanks for sharing this. I just committed a tweak to Apache->module
so you can test for .c modules too, so instead of this test:

@{[$host eq "w3.stonehenge.com:443" && <<THIS]}

You can do this:
@{[Apache->module("apache_ssl.c") || Apache->module("mod_ssl.c") && <<THIS]}
SSLEnable
SSLRequireSSL
SSLLogFile logs/ssl_log
THIS

Just like using the IfModule directive.

-Doug
===========================================

as schwartz relays, there's no obvious syntax (not yet, or not
yet published) to know whether to use %VirtualHost or @VirtualHost
or $VirtualHost or even *VIRTUALHOST for that matter.

so slinging strings seems like a natual fallback--but either i've
got a missing perl statement/use/include/something somehow, or
some prior apache directive disables my attempts...