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Apache Config



If there is a syntax error in the Perl code causing it to fail during compilation, Apache will report the problem and the server will not start.
One way to catch Perl syntax errors ahead of time is to structure your sections like this: 

 
 #!perl

 #... code here ...

  __END__

You can now directly syntax check the configuration file using the Perl interpreter's -cx switches. -c makes Perl perform a syntax check, and -x tells the interpreter to ignore all junk prior to the #!perl line: 

  % perl -cx httpd.conf
  httpd.conf syntax OK

If the Apache configuration generated from your Perl code produces a syntax error, this message will be sent to the server error log, but the server will still start. In general, it is always a good to look at the error log after starting the server to make sure startup went smoothly. If you have not picked up this good habit already, we strongly recommend you do so when working with configuration sections.

Another helpful trick is to build mod_perl with the PERL_TRACE configuration option set to true. Then, when the enviroment variable MOD_PERL_TRACE is set to s, httpd will output diagnostics showing how the section globals are converted into directive string values.

Another tool that is occasionally useful is the Apache::PerlSections module. It defines two public routines named dump() and store(). dump() dumps out the current contents of the section as a pretty-printed string. store does the same, but writes the contents to the file of your choice. Both methods are useful for making sure that the configuration you are getting is what you expect.

Apache::PerlSections requires the Perl Devel::Symdump and Data::Dumper modules, both available on CPAN. Here is a simple example of its use: 

 < Perl>
 #!perl
 use Apache::PerlSections();
 $User = 'nobody';
 $VirtualHost{'192.168.2.5:80'} = {
    ServerName   => 'www.fishfries.org',
    DocumentRoot => '/home/httpd/fishfries/htdocs',
    ErrorLog     => '/home/httpd/fishfries/logs/error.log',
    TransferLog  => '/home/httpd/fishfries/logs/access.log',
    ServerAdmin  => 'webmaster@fishfries.org',
 };
 print STDERR Apache::PerlSections->dump();
 __END__
 < /Perl>
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