[Xitami] CGI trouble - identical cfg - different execution

[MRJ InfoTech Admin]

At 13:43 15/02/2006, you wrote:
>All you have written below is a little complicated to understand. I
>don't write in VB for example, I write in Perl.
>
>And I haven't been able to understand why the NICs influence what
>happens  and how the IP is a problem. Unless you have assigned
>independent config files and disabled cgi in each and everyone of these
>problem IPs you mention, the IP should not matter. A referrer is a
>referrer, a simple url, no matter which IP or domain it is located on.
>
>1) I have not been able to find a Std. windows error #13 Type error. The
>ones I know have three digits. Eg: Error Code 121.
>What does the #13 Type error say?

Error #13 is MS Error for type casting in VB.
Basically it should only appear if you try to set a Long value to a 
Double or a Long to a String
You should be able to pass anything to a Variant in VB since it's 
accepting anything but not even that worked.

>3) If CGI is enabled on all of the 10 different domain configurations,
>the http-referer and the remote-addr fields are on the environment hash
>by default (environment=0). You do not have to set the environment to 1
>in config to have them on the hash.

The CGI_Referer is a function in the CGI itself that picks up on the 
servers values.
It works fine and can catch it, except when it started thinking there 
was a type error for some very odd reason.
The only thing I could not understand in this type problem was why it 
works fine on the development machine but not the server and I 
manually checked all config files to validate they are identical indeed.

>4) The http-referer will exist in the environment hash, only if there
>actually was a referrer (a mouse click on a link or a submit button on a
>real page bringing the user to your url). If the url was typed into the
>address bar of the browser, there will be no http-referer. Then your
>program  can not read it then from the environment hash.

True, which is quite ok.
Youre not supposed to be able to type in the URL directly nor link 
from a URL outside the domains path to the cgi I wrote.
When that happens it will refer the user back to the index page and 
require they come in the "assigned and controlled way"


>5) Did you print out the environment hash to yourself, under the
>conditions that the error occurs in your browser? What do the fields
>say? Which IP do you appear to have when the error occurs? What does the
>http-referer say? What does your program do with this information? In
>which line of your program does the problem happen? Is your test logic
>entirely correct?

The logic of the testing seems OK.
What in fact happens the way it is setup is as follows


Xitami controls the servers and assign all domains to listen to all 
incoming IP's

DNS on the other hand refers all but one of my domains to the primary 
IP number.
The last one, which is the largest one, with most hits, get assigned WWW and
*.Sitename.com access through both IP numbers on the box.

In this way it servers as a load balancing.

The problem is that this will also affect the CGI's on the site as 
the site can internally call itself by the following means

www.Sitename.com
sitename.com
##.##.##.1
##.##.##.2

and all are valid CGI_Referer

This is where it confuses the CGI and the Xitami server but this is 
controlled by the DNS in the end.

I will see if I cant work around this in a bit different way and if I 
find a good solution I might post a message to
the board about it too if someone else would like to have a solution like this.