This post is intended to rescue the people who are suffering from *not being able to properly setup Apache2 for Perl on Ubuntu. (The system configurations specific to your Linux machine will be mentioned within square brackets, like [this]).
Possible outcome of an improperly setup Apache 2:
- Browser trying to download the .pl file instead of executing and giving out the result.
- Forbidden.
- Internal server error.
If one follows the steps described below with a reasonable intelligence, he/she can get through the errors mentioned above.
Before starting the steps. Go to /etc/hosts file and add IP address / domain-name` for example:
127.0.0.1 www.BECK.com
Step 1: Install apache2
Step 2: Install mod_perl
Step 3: Configure apache2
open sites-available/default and add the following,
<Files ~ ".(pl|cgi)$">
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
Options +ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Files>
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory [path-to-store-your-website-files-like-.html-(perl-scripts-should-be-stored-in-cgi-bin] >
####(The Perl/CGI scripts can be stored out of the cgi-bin directory, but that's a story for another day. Let's concentrate on washing out the issue at hand)
####
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ [path-where-you-want-your-.pl-and-.cgi-files]
<Directory [path-where-you-want-your-.pl-and-.cgi-files]>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
AddHandler cgi-script .pl
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
<Files ~ ".(pl|cgi)$">
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
Options +ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Files>
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory [path-to-store-your-website-files-like-.html-(perl-scripts-should-be-stored-in-cgi-bin] >
####(The Perl/CGI scripts can be stored out of the cgi-bin directory, but that's a story for another day. Let's concentrate on washing out the issue at hand)
####
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ [path-where-you-want-your-.pl-and-.cgi-files]
<Directory [path-where-you-want-your-.pl-and-.cgi-files]>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
AddHandler cgi-script .pl
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
Step 4:
Add the following lines to your /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file.
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
<Files ~ ".pl$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
<Files ~ ".cgi$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
<IfModule mod_perl.c>
<IfModule mod_alias.c>
Alias /perl/ /home/sly/host/perl/
</IfModule>
<Location /perl>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::Registry
Options +ExecCGI
</Location>
</IfModule>
<Files ~ ".pl$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
Step 5:
Very important, or at least I guess so, only after doing this step, I got it to work.
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
<Files ~ ".pl$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
<Files ~ ".cgi$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
<IfModule mod_perl.c>
<IfModule mod_alias.c>
Alias /perl/ /home/sly/host/perl/
</IfModule>
<Location /perl>
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::Registry
Options +ExecCGI
</Location>
</IfModule>
<Files ~ ".pl$">
Options +ExecCGI
</Files>
Step 6
Very important, or at least I guess so, only after doing this step, I got it to work.
Add the following to you /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default file
<Files ~ ".(pl|cgi)$">
SetHandler perl-script
PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
Options +ExecCGI
PerlSendHeader On
</Files>
Step 7:
Now add, your Perl script as test.pl in the place where you mentioned before in step 3 as [path-where-you-want-your-.pl-and-.cgi-files].
Give permissions to the .pl file using chmod and then, type the webaddress/cgi-bin/test.pl in the address bar of the browser, there you go, you got it.
(Now, many of the things would have been redundant in this post. Kindly ignore it.)
