COMMAND

    Frontpage extensions

SYSTEMS AFFECTED

    Frontpage extensions under Apache 1.3.4

PROBLEM

    Sitzkrieg  Redundus  found  following.   By  default, Apache 1.3.4
    places all runtime directives  in httpd.conf, and leaves  srm.conf
    and access.conf empty.  From the default httpd.conf:

        "You  can  have  the  server  ignore these files altogether by
        using '/dev/null'  (for Unix)  or   "nul" (for  Win32) for the
        arguments to the directives."

    Great.  Except that when creating a root web, fp_install.sh  calls
    fpsrvadm.exe,   which   moves   the   file   specified   by    the
    "ResourceConfig" directive "file.bak" and installs its own.  Thus,
    on systems running  the Apache 1.3.4  where the user  has followed
    the advice in the httpd.conf (or *any* Apache install which points
    ResourceConfig  and  AccessConfig  to  /dev/null  for that matter)
    we see before:

        stanis# ls -la /dev/null
        crw-rw-rw-   1 root     root       1,   3 Feb  4 16:35 /dev/null

    and after:

        -rw-rw-r--   1 root     root           67 Feb  4 17:56 /dev/null
        crw-rw-rw-   1 root     root       1,   3 Feb  4 16:35 /dev/null.bak

    Silly  fpsrvadm....  what  have  we  told  you  about playing with
    character devices? Heh... nothing, it seems.

SOLUTION

    Ready-to-Run on  the phone  indicated that  Apache 1.3.4  wasn't a
    supported platform.   As previously  noted, however  this  doesn't
    just effect Apache 1.3.4.

    The solution to this is to create a whole new tree of config files
    which the  http server  will not  actually use.   The advantage is
    that the http  server can do  things better without  all the cruft
    Frontpage adds, and Frontpage is  happy because it can modify  the
    config  files,  and  they  don't  bother  the webserver.  So, just
    create a dummy tree of config files with the information Frontpage
    wants,  and  make  it  run   against  that  (guess  is  that   the
    /usr/local/frontpage/<domain>:<port>  file  contained  the path to
    the config files).