Re: Environment variable problem after upgrade

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On 4/18/05, Owen Berry <owen.berry@xxxxx.xxx> wrote:
> I am experiencing a problem with the REMOTE_USER environment variable
> after an upgrade to Apache 2. We are using AuthDBI to authenticate
> users, which uses basic authentication with the browser to request
> their details. Hence the use of REMOTE_USER.
>=20
> Users authenticate fine and seem to be working with no problems, but
> when there are multiple people using the system the REMOTE_USER
> environment variable gets set to seemingly random user names, and the
> users keep stepping on each other. The CGI module is being used and
> initially I thought the problem was there, as the username is
> retrieved ala "$USER =3D remote_user", however after looking at the
> CGI.pm code, all it does is return the value of the REMOTE_USER
> environment variable.
>=20
> Unfortunately it seems that the AuthDBI module has not been ported to
> the Apache2/mod_perl2 APIs, so we have to run it under the
> compatibility layer. Ech! Any known problems there?
>=20
> Looks to me like the environment variables aren't being reset
> correctly after each request, and they are sticking around with the
> Apache process.
>=20
> I tried logging "$r->user()" to see if that was more reliable, but no
> luck there either. It seems to be empty more than wrong, so I guess it
> is doing something different, but still no good. Maybe it is
> indicative of where the problem lies though.
>=20
> Thinking of anything else that might be useful in solving this problem:
>=20
> Apache MPM: prefork
> PerlHandler ModPerl::Registry
> Apache 2.0.46
> mod_perl 1.99_09
> Perl 5.8.0
> OS Linux 2.4.21-20.0.1 smp
> Distribution RHELv3
>=20
> This code has been running under mod_perl1 for a few years now, so the
> problems seem to be related to the software upgrade, rather than the
> usual problems related to bad scripts.
>=20
> Any help would be gladly appreciated as I have an application that is
> basically unusable at the moment. Please ask questions if you need
> more info.
>=20
> Thanks!
> Owen Berry
>=20

Something else that I have noticed is that the problem seem to only be
occurring after a form post - a pure GET is fine ... so far.