PHP3 and .htaccess: The story so far

I am new to the PHP list. I am chasing a bug. This affects bugs in the PHP database #1884, #3030, #3364, possibly others. In short: I get permission denied every time I try to read a page. An error is logged: 'Cannot read .htaccess' when the .htaccess does not exist. So fire up gdb, break on ap_pcfg_openfile() and run, pass 'cont' until we hit the error. We are here: #0 0x80c5c26 in ap_pcfg_openfile () #1 0x80b1dd3 in ap_parse_htaccess () #2 0x80c1a3c in directory_walk () #3 0x80c2ca0 in process_request_internal () #4 0x80c30d4 in ap_process_request () #5 0x80bafc1 in child_main () #6 0x80bb154 in make_child () #7 0x80bb2af in startup_children () #8 0x80bb8ac in standalone_main () #9 0x80bbfff in main () #10 0x804c36e in _start () If we allow overrides in a <Directory>, we get directory configuration in directory_walk(). We then try to parse a .htaccess file, so we call ap_parse_htaccess(), which calls ap_pcfg_openfile(). This calls ap_pfopen(), which (as may be deduced from the surrounding statements) is returning NULL without saying anything in errno. Therefore, since we have a NULL but errno is neither ENOENT or ENOTDIR, ap_parse_htaccess() craps itself and says 'I'm going to disallow you just in case'. [This is probably why 'AllowOverride' caused some problems in bug #3030, #1884, #3364, it would make the directory_walk() start differently] So we now look at ap_pfopen(), we mess with alloc.c: 1821 else { 1822 fd = fopen(name, mode); 1823 if (fd == NULL) { 1824 ap_log_error(APLOG_MARK, APLOG_WARNING, NULL, 1825 "Failed to open %s : %s", 1826 name, strerror(errno)); 1827 } 1828 } We get: [Mon Jan 31 20:53:19 2000] [warn] Attempting config file /var/lib/httpd/.htaccess [Mon Jan 31 20:53:19 2000] [warn] Failed to open /var/lib/httpd/.htaccess : Success [Mon Jan 31 20:53:19 2000] [warn] Opening config file /var/lib/httpd/.htaccess (Success) [Mon Jan 31 20:53:19 2000] [crit] [client 194.207.107.51] /var/lib/httpd/.htaccess pcfg_openfile: unable to check htaccess file, ensure it is readable Not friendly. We're not out of fds (the known Solaris bug). It's a new process. root@ /proc/20530/fd# ls -l total 0 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 0 -> [0307]:214075 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 1 -> [0307]:214075 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 15 -> [0000]:96390559 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 16 -> [0306]:322803 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 17 -> [0306]:322804 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 18 -> [0306]:322805 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 19 -> [0306]:322810 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 2 -> [0306]:322803 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 20 -> [0306]:53468 lr-x------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 3 -> [0306]:302237 lr-x------ 1 root root 64 Jan 31 20:46 4 -> [0306]:302237 So what's the story here, why is putting PHP3 in making Apache fail on a simple OS fopen()? I am here lost. Any suggestions gratefully accepted. I'm about to try Apache-1.3.11 to see if that changes things. Ta. S. -- Shevek GM/CS/MU -d+ H+>++ s+: !g p2 au0 !a w+++ v-(---) C++++$ UL++++$ UB+ US+++$ UI+++$ P++>++++ L++++$ 3+ E--- N K- !W(-----) M(-) !V -po+ Y+ t+ 5++ !j !R G' !tv b+++ D++ B--- e+ u+* h++ f? r++ n---- y? Recent UH+>++ UO+ UC++ U?+++ UV++ and collecting.