Dear All:
I've found another interesting thing and wondered if anyone else had run into this.
I have a bunch of web servers running, all on RH7.1 now. I went to the CPAN site to grab some modules that I liked and went to install them. The one I wanted most to work was Apache-AuthenNIS which allows Apache to query a yp server as the authority for access to certain directories.
On the machines that I had installed RH7.1 cold from bare disk, it went in and worked beautifully. On the machines that were upgraded warm from RH6.2 to RH7.1 the plugin failed (unknown or misspelled directive "PerlAuthenHandler Apache::AuthenNIS").
Upon investigating, I realised that Apache is NOT completely upgraded, nor are the scripts (notably httpd) in /etc/rc.d/init.d. Because the "upgraded" Apache is quite different to the one installed cold, they don't start the same, nor do they work the same.
I have two sets of machines (several "upgraded" and several "installed fresh") to double-blind the results. In every case, it was the same effect: great with installed cold; no joy with the upgraded ones.
I tried substituting the more modern /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd script for the unupgraded one, but that made things blow up most spectacularly.
Well, hmph!
Before I tear up a running, online machine, has anyone else run into this? I haven't SEEN any mention of this effect, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have missed it.
It seems the only true solution is to erase the upgraded machines and start over, if you want ALL of the latest Apache features. The new .../init.d/httpd script locates modules and sets -D{efine} arguments to pass to Apache, while the old one simply starts or stops the httpd daemon. If it were simply a matter of substituting the more modern init script, that would have done it and I wouldn't be writing this :-)
The interesting thing is I'd've never known unless I went to add something to Apache -- as a server with the same config as used on 6.2 it works just the same (as near as I or any of my users can tell).
Any ideas or workarounds, anyone?
Best regards,
Bill