Now you
have to select a directory where all the
mod_perl scripts and modules will be placed. We usually create a
directory called modperl under our home
directory for this purpose (e.g.,
/home/stas/modperl), but it is also common to
create a directory called perl under your Apache
server root, such as /usr/local/apache/perl.
First create this
directory if it doesn't
yet exist:
panic% mkdir /home/stas/modperl
Next, set the file permissions. Remember
that when scripts are executed from a shell, they are being executed
with the permissions of the user's account. Usually,
you want to have read, write, and execute access for yourself, but
only read and execute permissions for the server. When the scripts
are run by Apache, however, the server needs to be able to read and
execute them. Apache runs under an account specified by the
User directive, typically
nobody. You can modify the
User directive to run the server under your
username, for example:
User stas
Since the permissions on all files and directories should usually be
rwx------,[13] set the directory permissions to:
[13]See the
chmod manpage for more information regarding octal
modes.
panic% chmod 0700 /home/stas/modperl
Now no one but you and the server can access the files in this
directory. You should set the same permissions for all the files you
place under this directory. [14]
[14]You
don't need to set the x bit for
files that aren't going to be executed; mode
0600 is sufficient for those files.
If the server is running under the nobody
account, you have to set the permissions to
rwxr-xr-x or 0755 for your
files and directories. This is insecure, because other users on the
same machine can read your files.
panic# chmod 0755 /home/stas/modperl
If you aren't running the server with your username,
you have to set these permissions for all the files created under
this directory so Apache can read and execute them.
In the following examples, we assume that you run the server under
your username, and hence we set the scripts'
permissions to 0700.
