nginx + fcgiwrap, web interface problems

[Jon Evans-5]

Hi all,

I am trying to configure Mailman on a system using nginx, and fcgiwrap for
CGI, according to this guide: http://wiki.nginx.org/Mailman

After doing so, I have a problem:  The main listinfo page displays, and
shows my public lists, but all other links redirect back to listinfo.  I
can't get to any specific list information page, and I can't get to any
parts of the admin for any list.

I have run check_perms and nothing is wrong there.  There are no errors
reported in the web server logs.  I suspect that this might be something to
do with nginx's fastcgi proxying or something, but I haven't been able to
find any solutions.

The server is a VPS with several virtual hosts.  Mailman works properly, and
I can access the admin interface for all the lists using Virtualmin's
wrapper script.  Of course, I can't give my list moderators the Virtualmin
password, so there's still a problem ;-)

My nginx config looks like: http://pastebin.com/UzF7bViq

Has anyone reading this been successful with Mailman + nginx using fcgiwrap
and virtual hosts?

Best,
Jon
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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Jon Evans wrote:
>
>I am trying to configure Mailman on a system using nginx, and fcgiwrap for
>CGI, according to this guide: http://wiki.nginx.org/Mailman
>
>After doing so, I have a problem:  The main listinfo page displays, and
>shows my public lists, but all other links redirect back to listinfo.  I
>can't get to any specific list information page, and I can't get to any
>parts of the admin for any list.


Caveat - I know virtually nothing about nginx, fcgiwrap and fastcgi.

It appears that PATH_INFO is not properly set (actually not set at all)
in the environment passed to the Mailman CGIs. A URL like

  http://www.example.com/mailman/sss/aaa/bbb/ccc

should invoke the Mailman CGI named sss and pass PATH_INFO=/aaa/bbb/ccc.

>From what I see in your nginx config, things like

   fastcgi_split_path_info (^/mailman/[^/]*)(.*)$;
and
   fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;

should do this, but compared to the guide at
http://wiki.nginx.org/Mailman you are missing

   include fastcgi_params;

which could be the problem.


When you go to an 'admin' URL, do you get the admin overview page? This
would be consistent with missing PATH_INFO.

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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[Jon Evans-5]

When I go to an 'admin' URL, I get the admin overview like you say.  It
would appear that your diagnosis is correct, no arguments are getting passed
to any of the CGI scripts.

I replaced "include fastcgi_params;" with the large list of individual
params for debugging purposes.  I have a new pastebin (
http://pastebin.com/N5C66FpP) that shows the difference between nginx's
fastcgi_params include and what is in my config.  There is nothing missing
from my config, in other words.

I just tested the regex, and it seems to appropriately split the path into,
for example,
PATH_INFO = /list-name/admin
PATH_TRANSLATED = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/list-name/admin
SCRIPT_FILENAME = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin

I will keep playing with the variables and see if I get anywhere.  Thanks
for the leads!

Jon

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Mark Sapiro <mark@...> wrote:

> Jon Evans wrote:
> >
> >I am trying to configure Mailman on a system using nginx, and fcgiwrap for
> >CGI, according to this guide: http://wiki.nginx.org/Mailman
> >
> >After doing so, I have a problem:  The main listinfo page displays, and
> >shows my public lists, but all other links redirect back to listinfo.  I
> >can't get to any specific list information page, and I can't get to any
> >parts of the admin for any list.
>
>
> Caveat - I know virtually nothing about nginx, fcgiwrap and fastcgi.
>
> It appears that PATH_INFO is not properly set (actually not set at all)
> in the environment passed to the Mailman CGIs. A URL like
>
>  http://www.example.com/mailman/sss/aaa/bbb/ccc
>
> should invoke the Mailman CGI named sss and pass PATH_INFO=/aaa/bbb/ccc.
>
> From what I see in your nginx config, things like
>
>   fastcgi_split_path_info (^/mailman/[^/]*)(.*)$;
> and
>   fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
>
> should do this, but compared to the guide at
> http://wiki.nginx.org/Mailman you are missing
>
>   include fastcgi_params;
>
> which could be the problem.
>
>
> When you go to an 'admin' URL, do you get the admin overview page? This
> would be consistent with missing PATH_INFO.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>
>

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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Jon Evans wrote:
>
>When I go to an 'admin' URL, I get the admin overview like you say.  It
>
>I just tested the regex, and it seems to appropriately split the path into,
>for example,
>PATH_INFO = /list-name/admin
>PATH_TRANSLATED = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/list-name/admin
>SCRIPT_FILENAME = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin



What was the actual URL in this case? The above seems strange. If the
URL is http://host/mailman/admin/list-name/admin, then PATH_INFO seems
right, but that's an unusual URL. Also, PATH_TRANSLATED and
SCRIPT_FILENAME are unusual, but if your Mailman CGI wrappers are
actually in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/, then that seems OK.

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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[Jon Evans-5]

http://domain.com/mailman/list-name/admin
I got rid of the cgi-bin part of the URL, and modified mm_cfg.py to reflect
that change.  The Mailman-generated links on the page also reflect that.
 And yes, the Mailman CGI's are (symlinked) in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/.

Is there anything abnormal about them other than the location of the CGIs on
my system?

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 12:35 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@...> wrote:

> Jon Evans wrote:
> >
> >When I go to an 'admin' URL, I get the admin overview like you say.  It
> >
> >I just tested the regex, and it seems to appropriately split the path
> into,
> >for example,
> >PATH_INFO = /list-name/admin
> >PATH_TRANSLATED = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/list-name/admin
> >SCRIPT_FILENAME = /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin
>
>
>
> What was the actual URL in this case? The above seems strange. If the
> URL is http://host/mailman/admin/list-name/admin, then PATH_INFO seems
> right, but that's an unusual URL. Also, PATH_TRANSLATED and
> SCRIPT_FILENAME are unusual, but if your Mailman CGI wrappers are
> actually in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/, then that seems OK.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>
>

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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Jon Evans wrote:
>
>http://domain.com/mailman/list-name/admin


The standard URL is http://domain.com/mailman/admin/list-name and
PATH_INFO should be just /list-name in this case

If you are doing some mapping/rewriting so that the list name can
precede the CGI name in your URLs, that may be where the problem lies

>I got rid of the cgi-bin part of the URL, and modified mm_cfg.py to reflect
>that change.


The cgi-bin part is non-standard in GNU Mailman, Are you using someones
package?


>The Mailman-generated links on the page also reflect that.
> And yes, the Mailman CGI's are (symlinked) in /usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/.
>
>Is there anything abnormal about them other than the location of the CGIs on
>my system?


The major abnormality is your URL. Are you sure your URL's are like the
one above? If so, What have you done to make the URLs in links on
Mailman's web pages take that form?

What happens if you put the following in
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/printenv and go to
<http://domain.com/mailman/printenv/aa/bb/cc>?

-------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/python

import os

print 'Content-type: text/html'
print
print '<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Print Environment</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>'
for n,v in os.environ.items():
    print '%s: %s<br>' % (n,v)
print ' </BODY> </HTML>'
--------------------------------------------------------------

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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[Jon Evans-5]

I mistyped that last time, doh.  It is
http://domain.com/mailman/admin/list-name.  I got the CentOS 5 package
(Mailman 2.1.11) which defaults to an Apache config of /cgi-bin/mailman/ and
I changed it to just be /mailman/ (in terms of the URL, not the folder
structure).

Your script output:
http://pastebin.com/waqQC8Lr

<http://pastebin.com/waqQC8Lr>Looks like:
PATH_TRANSLATED: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/aa/bb/cc
is wrong, shouldn't it be something like
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/aa/bb/cc?





On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 12:54 PM, Mark Sapiro <mark@...> wrote:

> #!/usr/bin/python
>
> import os
>
> print 'Content-type: text/html'
> print
> print '<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Print Environment</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>'
> for n,v in os.environ.items():
>    print '%s: %s<br>' % (n,v)
> print ' </BODY> </HTML>'
>

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[Mark Sapiro-3]

Jon Evans wrote:
>
>I mistyped that last time, doh.  It is
>http://domain.com/mailman/admin/list-name.  I got the CentOS 5 package
>(Mailman 2.1.11) which defaults to an Apache config of /cgi-bin/mailman/ and
>I changed it to just be /mailman/ (in terms of the URL, not the folder
>structure).


OK. That's all fine.


>Your script output:
>http://pastebin.com/waqQC8Lr
>
>Looks like:
>PATH_TRANSLATED: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/aa/bb/cc
>is wrong, shouldn't it be something like
>/usr/lib/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/aa/bb/cc?


No, I think that's correct, but it doesn't matter to Mailman. The
script itself got executed, so the server must be going to the right
place to find it.

The issue I see is that there is no PATH_INFO in the environment at
all. This is strange. Your config has in part

root /usr/lib/cgi-bin;
fastcgi_split_path_info (^/mailman/[^/]*)(.*)$;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
fastcgi_param PATH_TRANSLATED $document_root$fastcgi_path_info;

so $document_root is /usr/lib/cgi-bin and $fastcgi_path_info is if I
understand correctly, whatever matches the second group in
fastcgi_split_path_info which in the case of a GET for
/mailman/printenv/aa/bb/cc is /aa/bb/cc. This is reflected in
PATH_TRANSLATED: /usr/lib/cgi-bin/aa/bb/cc, and should result in
PATH_INFO: /aa/bb/cc

However, for some reason, there is no PATH_INFO at all in the
enviroment passed to printenv. This lack explains your issue. I can't
explain why it is missing given your config, but it needs to be there
for the Mailman web interface to work.

--
Mark Sapiro <mark@...>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan

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