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jkurantFlag for United States of America

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How do I include information about the error on the 500.shtml page on an apache server so I can see what the error is?

I have a cgi script that has vbeen running just fine on my client's apache server. I am a developer working on the scripts. today the script is erroring out with a standard error page and I can't tell why. I restored a formerly working backup copy, and it does not work. I then delteted everything except Print "Hello World", and that doesn't work!\

So, something is going on with the server, I guess, or I triggered some anti-malware code and all my scripts are disabled. I don't know.

What i would like is to know what the error actually is. When I access the error log in cPanel, I get nothing. Well, this is what I get:L

[Thu Sep 09 20:37:56 2010] [client 74.76.45.211] File does not exist: /home/healsrev/public_html/500.shtml, referer: http://www.healsreview.com/NewAuthTest.html

I think the file that didn't exist was 500.shtml. But now that I have created that file, I get that page when I run the script, as expected.

So, my question is: How do I get the error page to include the error information? Is this possible? What other error log could I look at?
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jkurant
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I now know that the file that didn't exist, as shown in the error log, was a file linked on the error page. with that fixed, the scripts still do not run and do not write anything to the log. i think my scripts are just disabled somehow, but i can't find anything in cPanel to change that might fix it.
Avatar of Dave Baldwin
I don't think it's possible.  I went looking all thru the Apache docs online today for another question and all they say about errors is that you can change the error message page.  I don't have a site with Cpanel right now so I can't check.  Are you able to set or check permissions for the 'cgi' directory from cpanel?
Check how your LogLevel is set, it should be at least

LogLevel error

If it won't do anything, try the debug one
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#loglevel
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I was afraid it might not be possible, DaveBaldwin. The only access I have to the server is via cPanel.

In fact, I have found out what was the problem. The scrips lost their execute permissions and I had to have the server admins use "chmod 755" the scripts. The problem is that I am using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 or even FrontPage to edit the website and these tools don't seem to know anything about file permissions. I cannot set the execute permission, as with chmod, from these tools.

Does anyone know of a good tool for editing files on an apache server with the ability to set the unix permissions? Really, all I need is to be able to set the permissions of the files on the server when they somehow get changed. I wonder if I could ftp into the server and change the permissions using WinFTP? (I am running Windows 7). Does anyone know how to set these permissions using cPanel or any other way?
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Dave Baldwin
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Sorry, that should have been CoreFTP.  Filezilla is another popular FTP program.
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Ah ha! So that's what cPanel means: Control Panel.  I will get CuteFTP and use that to change the permissions. Thanks.