500 error and log entry: "Could not open config file /etc/apache2/suexec/www-data"

Virtualmin
1

I’m trying to setup my first wordpress site, but am just getting a 500 message in the browser.

I get this error in /var/log/apache2/suexec.log.

[2015-06-11 07:45:18]: User www-data not allowed: Could not open config file /etc/apache2/suexec/www-data

It is accurate that the file doesn’t exist. If I create a blank file at that location, it reports the following.

[2015-06-11 07:48:43]: Could not read docroot from /etc/apache2/suexec/www-data

I’m a bit confused as I thought suexec should be executing the site as the user of the site, not the apache user.

Any idea what I have setup wrong?

Thanks!

2

Howdy,

What distro/version are you using?

And what’s the output of this command:

dpkg -l 'apache2*'
3

Thank you

$ lsb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS Release: 14.04 Codename: trusty $ dpkg -l 'apache2*' Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-=================================-=====================-=====================-======================================================================== ii apache2 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.4 amd64 Apache HTTP Server un apache2-api-20120211 (no description available) ii apache2-bin 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.4 amd64 Apache HTTP Server (binary files and modules) ii apache2-data 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.4 all Apache HTTP Server (common files) ii apache2-doc 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.4 all Apache HTTP Server (on-site documentation) un apache2-mpm-event (no description available) un apache2-mpm-itk (no description available) un apache2-mpm-prefork (no description available) un apache2-mpm-worker (no description available) un apache2-suexec (no description available) ii apache2-suexec-custom 2.4.7-1ubuntu4.4 amd64 Apache HTTP Server configurable suexec program for mod_suexec un apache2-suexec-pristine (no description available) un apache2-utils (no description available) un apache2.2-bin (no description available) un apache2.2-common (no description available)
4

Just found this and thought I’d toss it in for good measure.

$ sudo /usr/lib/apache2/suexec -V -D SUEXEC_CONFIG_DIR=/etc/apache2/suexec/ -D AP_GID_MIN=100 -D AP_LOG_EXEC="/var/log/apache2/suexec.log" -D AP_SAFE_PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin" -D AP_UID_MIN=100

I see some examples around the internet with -D AP_USERDIR_SUFFIX=“public_html” so I’m looking into what that is about to see if it is related since I don’t have it.

5

I had to create a file /etc/apache2/suexec/www-data with the following content. In the past this has been created for me. Curious…

/home
public_html/cgi-bin

The first two lines contain the suexec document root and the suexec userdir

suffix. If one of them is disabled by prepending a # character, suexec will

refuse the corresponding type of request.

This config file is only used by the apache2-suexec-custom package. See the

suexec man page included in the package for more details.

6

Howdy,

That file is created when installing the “apache2-suexec-custom” package (which your output above shows is installed).

After installation, Virtualmin then updates it to point to the proper location (/home, rather than /var/www).

That’s very curious that it’s missing! I’m not sure why that would occur.

After you created the file above, are things working properly for you now?

-Eric

7

Yep, everything is working properly. It actually happened on two servers I was setting up at the same time. I’ll review my procedure next time to see if I goofed and accidentally have something that includes that in a delete or something. In the end it gave me an excuse to understand suexec better.

-Josiah