[mythtv-users] Did MythWeb 0.16 fry anyone elses gentoo machine?

Stephen Tait tait at digitallaw.co.uk
Wed Sep 15 16:34:21 EDT 2004


As I've been bemoaning in the gentoo forums, upgrading to MythWeb 0.16 has 
left me with a completely and utterly useless apache2.

Yes, this is a gentoo-specific question. I already posted their forums, but 
no-one seems interested or knows anything about it. Here's the story as I 
know it:

Did an emerge sync and emerge -uv world to upgrade everything in my myth suite.
Unbeknownst to me, mythweb 0.16 depends on a (I think) gentoo-specific 
package called webapp-config which is apparently designed for installing 
web applications (what the hell is wrong with tar zxvf?!). I later found 
out it displays a warning during compilation when no-one is going to be 
looking (why the hell can't they go the debian route and have 
post/pre-install  notification scripts?!)

  * Now that you have upgraded webapp-config, you **must** update your
  * config files in /etc/vhosts/webapp-config before you emerge any
  * packages that use webapp-config.

 From the documentation, it seems you only need webapp-config if you're 
running virtual hosts, which I don't want to do on this box. As to what I 
have to update my config files to, I have absolutely no idea, because 
no-one seems to know anything about this program. The config file in 
question is /etc/vhosts/webapp-config (most comments removed):

# VHOST_ROOT is the directory where virtual host websites are added
# so, if your server is hosting (say)
#
#       www.gentoo.org
#       bugs.gentoo.org
#
# then the htdocs directory for each of these would be
#
#       /var/www/www.gentoo.org/htdocs
#       /var/www/bugs.gentoo.org/htdocs
#
# Change this setting *only* if you need your websites installed in
# a different physical location

#VHOST_ROOT="/var/www/${G_HOSTNAME}"
VHOST_ROOT="/var/www/${G_HOSTNAME}/htdocs"

VHOST_HOSTNAME="localhost"

VHOST_SERVER="apache-basic"

VHOST_CONFIG_UID="`id -nu`"

VHOST_CONFIG_GID="`id -ng`"

VHOST_CONFIG_VIRTUAL_DIRS="virtual"

VHOST_CONFIG_VIRTUAL_FILES="virtual"

VHOST_CONFIG_DIR="${VHOST_ROOT}/conf"

VHOST_DEFAULT_UID="root"
VHOST_DEFAULT_GID="root"

VHOST_HTDOCS_INSECURE="htdocs"
VHOST_HTDOCS_SECURE="htdocs-secure"

VHOST_PERMS_SERVEROWNED_DIR=775
VHOST_PERMS_SERVEROWNED_FILE=664

VHOST_PERMS_CONFIGOWNED_DIR=755
VHOST_PERMS_CONFIGOWNED_FILE=644

VHOST_PERM_DEFAULTOWNED_DIR=755

VHOST_PERMS_VIRTUALOWNED_DIR=755
VHOST_PERMS_VIRTUALOWNED_FILE="o-w"

VHOST_PERMS_INSTALLDIR=755

#DO NOT EDIT THESE VARIABLES

MY_APPSUFFIX="${PN}/${PVR}"
MY_APPROOT="/usr/share/webapps"
MY_APPDIR="${MY_APPROOT}/${MY_APPSUFFIX}"
MY_PERSISTROOT="/var/db/webapps"
MY_PERSISTDIR="${MY_PERSISTROOT}/${MY_APPSUFFIX}"
MY_HTDOCSBASE="htdocs"
MY_HTDOCSDIR="${MY_APPDIR}/${MY_HTDOCSBASE}"
G_HTDOCSDIR="${VHOST_ROOT}/${G_HTDOCSBASE:-$MY_HTDOCSBASE}"
MY_HOSTROOTBASE="hostroot"
MY_HOSTROOTDIR="${MY_APPDIR}/${MY_HOSTROOTBASE}"
MY_CGIBINBASE="cgi-bin"
MY_CGIBINDIR="${MY_HOSTROOTDIR}/${MY_CGIBINBASE}"
MY_ICONSBASE="icons"
MY_ICONSDIR="${MY_HOSTROOTDIR}/${MY_ICONSBASE}"
MY_ERRORSBASE="error"
MY_ERRORSDIR="${MY_HOSTROOTDIR}/${MY_ERRORSBASE}"
MY_SQLSCRIPTSDIR="${MY_APPDIR}/sqlscripts"
MY_HOOKSCRIPTSDIR="${MY_APPDIR}/hooks"
MY_SERVERCONFIGDIR="${MY_APPDIR}/conf"
WA_CONFIGLIST="${MY_APPDIR}/config-files"
WA_SOLIST="${MY_APPDIR}/server-owned-files"
WA_POSTINSTALLINFO="${MY_APPDIR}/post-install-instructions.txt"
WA_RUNBYCGIBINLIST="${MY_APPDIR}/run-by-cgi-bin"
WA_VIRTUALLIST="${MY_APPDIR}/virtuals"
WA_INSTALLSBASE="installs"
WA_INSTALLS="${MY_PERSISTDIR}/${WA_INSTALLSBASE}"

Thankfully for me, most of these variables are explained heavily in the 
manpages. Oh wait, no they're not.

After re-merging mythweb again, I saw I also missed another warning message:

  * vhosts USE flag not set - auto-installing using webapp-config
  * This is an installation
  * mythweb-0.16 is not installed - using install mode
  * Running /usr/sbin/webapp-config -I -h localhost -u root -d /mythweb 
mythweb 0.16
^o^ hiding config/._cfg0001_conf.php
  *     mythweb-0.16 does not install any files from
  *       /usr/share/webapps/mythweb/0.16/hostroot

Highly confusing, if you ask me. A quick "locate mythweb" shows that 
mythweb 0.16 is now happily living in /usr/share/webapps, rather than the 
more common /var/www/localhost/htdocs to which I had become accustomed.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that *very single page* apache2 serves 
now results in a 403 forbidden, even the basic index.html. I've tried 
mucking around with my config files, uninstalling this hellish 
webapp-config thing, reinstalling apache, and it still won't go away. 
Obviously, permissions are all set fine, and all the error logs say is 
"permission denied". I can't find out what the hell is blocking everything. 
This is turning into the most idiotic "simple upgrade breaks apache" 
escapade I've ever seen!

If anyone knows anything about this, I'd be much obliged if you could point 
me in the right direction, even if it's a debian ISO - I'll even mail you a 
lollipop for your troubles. Failing that, a way to quickly excise any trace 
of anything vhosts-related on my system would also not go amiss. Failing 
that, a shirty bug report and a debian ISO...



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