[gambit-list] Difficulty with Gambit - Apache SELinux

Fred Weigel fred_weigel at hotmail.com
Tue Feb 12 03:04:11 EST 2013


Eduardo Costa <edu500ac <at> gmail.com> writes:

> 
> 
> One year or so ago, I contacted this list about running Gambit on
Linux (I
> compiled the programs on Zorin/Ubuntu, and tried to run them on a
choice of
> Linux hosting services). My programs work perfectly well in about
every
> Scheme compiler, except Gambit.
[snip]
> Internal Server ErrorThe server encountered an internal error or
> misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
[snip]

I find this error very disturbing, and decided (for my own sanity) to
drill down. I adopted Gambit-C as my primary programming environment
around six months ago, because it integrates well with C, is very
platform neutral(runs on iOS, Android, Unix, Linux, Windows, etc.), is
performance oriented, and is actively supported. I had just been working
with Gambit-C as its own web server, but didn't see why it couldn't be
used under Apache as a CGI script. So, I decided to "tackle" this issue.
My intention is to deploy Gambit-C with different interfaces: sockets
or pipes, as an Apache CGI, as a stand-alone web service that Apache
forwards to ("middleware"), and with a stand-alone GUI. I see no reason
why the Apache CGI isn't working for you, except for mis-configured
Apache or Linux security.

I have tried to isolate the deployment of a compiled Gambit-C
application into 3 main steps:

- deploy a simple BASH script
- deploy Gambit-C interpreted (gsi) script
- deploy compiled Gambit-C application

I do not go into Apache configuration; only if the simple BASH script
doesn't work do we need to consider this.

The error (I am presuming code 500) can come from a variety of things.

Check the Apache logs (typically /var/log/httpd/error_log). If using
SELinux some additional things need to happen (assuming you are copying
your script to /var/www/cgi-bin). I would start with a simple "Hello,
world" shell script -

#!/bin/bash
# Make sure there is an empty line after Content-type
echo "Content-type: text/html"
echo
echo "Hello, world"

You seem to have this covered; but look at the LACK of markup in the
sample! Check the error_log, and if (as I suspect) it isn't executable:

Apache runs scripts as "nobody" or "apache":

# optional ownership change
chown apache:apache cgi.sh
# make sure everybody can execute
chmod a+x cgi.sh

If it still complains (please look at error_log), you may need some
SELinux kung-fu:

# Allow Apache to execute scripts
# Only need to do this once...
setsebool -P httpd_enable_cgi 1

# Restore httpd_sys_script_exec_t context to cgi.sh
# (if the file was copied in from elsewhere...)
cd /var/www/cgi-bin
restorecon cgi.sh

(commands may be in /sbin)

Now, try the cgi.sh script: http://localhost/cgi-bin/cgi.sh
This shoud work, and give you a "Hello, World". If not, post error_log,
etc. We may need to dig into Apache configuration, but these
instructions should cover RHEL (and derivative) OSs.

If cgi.sh works, we can go to the next step:

cp cgi.sh cgi.scm

(which copies the SELinux context as well) and make it a Gambit-C file:

#!/usr/bin/gsi
(display "Content-type: text/html")
(newline)
(newline)
(display "Hello, World from gsi")
(newline)

and that is pretty much all there is to it! (for recent RHEL and Fedora
with SELinux enforcing). Note the utter lack of tags -- keep it simple.

and, of course, test by browsing to http://localhost/cgi-bin/cgi.scm

Hello, World from gsi

The final step is compiling the script:

gsc -exe cgi.scm

(but add -:d- to the shebang line first)

Since "cgi" was compiled IN the correct directory, it should be SELinux
tagged correctly. If it was compiled "out of directory", you will need:

restorecon -v cgi

And test with http://localhost/cgi-bin/cgi

Hello, World from gsi *** ERROR -- Unbound variable: main 

Now, if you leave off the -:d-, you will see it in the apache error_log:

[Mon Feb 11 22:48:38 2013] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]
*** FATAL ERROR -- No controlling terminal (try using the -:d- runtime
option)
[Mon Feb 11 22:48:38 2013] [error] [client 127.0.0.1]
Premature end of script headers: cgi

If you still have problems:

[fred at dejah cgi-bin]$ ldd cgi
linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff1697b000)
libutil.so.1 => /lib64/libutil.so.1 (0x0000003694000000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x0000003ebc000000)
libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x0000003687000000)
libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x0000003686000000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x0000003685c00000)

Hopefully, you are statically linking libgambc.a (cgi will be 5mb or
so). If more performance is needed, we can deal with that. Running the
cgi binary manually should also work!

[fred at dejah cgi-bin]$ ./cgi
Content-type: text/html

Hello, World from gsi
*** ERROR -- Unbound variable: main
[fred at dejah cgi-bin]$ 

Now, I don't know how running with the Gambit-C library as a shared
".so" would work (haven't tried, but it should be pretty much the same),
because I use the gsc that is supplied with my OS.

What I find remarkable is that the "other" Scheme implementations
actually worked.

Fred Weigel




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