[KLUG Members] Authentication in Apache 2.0 (Joys of Upgrading)

[Robert G. Brown]

I am pleased to say that I have resolved all the problems with
the numerous web sites being moved to a new web server, running
Apache 2. 

Everything except authentication, that is.

I had taken virtual host definitions from a working 1.3.x server,
changed some paths, and used that as the basis for the 2.0
virtual host section.

Eventually, once I'd corrected some errors, all the web sites were 
working...except, it finally occurred to me, for the web sites that 
had authentication set up (no .htaccess files for me, I prefer set-
ting all this in the virtual host definitions). I commented out the
lines in the <Directory> sections that pertained to authentication, 
and without that stuff, the web sites were working.
  
Then the lines were decommented, in one virtual host.  One browser
(Mozilla) trotted out a warning saying: "Page has no data", and 
another (from a large company in the NW US), offered up a "Cannot
find server or DNS error" page. The server log showed a segmentation
fault [!] probably for the server process tasked to that request.

Next, the Apache 2 documentation on this topic got a careful read,
and the configuration file was checked that the right modules, etc. 
were being loaded. To a great degree, I'd left the httpd.conf file 
for Apache 2 alone, and re-wrote the authentication directives in
a virtual host (keeping  the others commented) according to the docs.
The lines I've now written are not materially different than what 
was there before, and it still does not work, with the same symptoms 
outlined just above.

There are advisories against using Apache 2 and PHP on a "production"
server; this server will not be considered production until those is-
sues are resolved (the latest PHP release does NOT seem to resolve 
these issues, or even address them). It is useful to configure and test 
this migration NOW, rather than wait until all of these issues have
been resolved, at which time the server can be upgraded, tested, and
put into production. 

Do others have the same experience? Is there some terrible flaw in
authentication, or something really radically new? Why is this 
aspect of migration (after checking file permissions, ownerships, 
paths, etc.) proving to be so difficult? I would think that as this
is a fairly direct port from a working 1.3.x server, the problems
would be fairly easily resolved, especially as there are no notes
that related to this in moving from 1.3.x to 2.0.x....

                                                    Regards,
                                                    ---> RGB <---