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Is it possible that Firefox prevents serverside includes (SSI) from functioning?

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  • Last reply by jerryerp

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I am no doubt asking in the wrong place, but...I have Apache2 running on a linux locally. I believe I have set it up to support server-side includes. I have a cgi-bin perl script, hell.pl:

#!/usr/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "Hello, world\n";
exit;

Under Firefox, I can generate the Hello World page through the url

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/cgi-bin/hell.pl

where xxx.xxx... is the apache2 server address.

But if I try to do that via the html file:

<HTML>
<HEAD></HEAD>
Test:<BR>
<BODY>
<!--#include virtual=/cgi-bin/hell.pl" -->
</BODY></HTML> 

All I get is page which is blank except for the "Test:" on line 1. The apache error and access logs show no relevant problems, as if the browser treats the serverside include as a comment.

I realize that the fault no doubt lies with the apache2 configuration, but I have studied and studied... and am now clutching at straws.

I am no doubt asking in the wrong place, but...I have Apache2 running on a linux locally. I believe I have set it up to support server-side includes. I have a cgi-bin perl script, hell.pl: <br /> <pre><nowiki>#!/usr/bin/perl print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; print "Hello, world\n"; exit; </nowiki></pre> Under Firefox, I can generate the Hello World page through the url xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/cgi-bin/hell.pl where xxx.xxx... is the apache2 server address. But if I try to do that via the html file: <br /> <pre><nowiki><HTML> <HEAD></HEAD> Test:<BR> <BODY> <!--#include virtual=/cgi-bin/hell.pl" --> </BODY></HTML> </nowiki></pre> All I get is page which is blank except for the "Test:" on line 1. The apache error and access logs show no relevant problems, as if the browser treats the serverside include as a comment. I realize that the fault no doubt lies with the apache2 configuration, but I have studied and studied... and am now clutching at straws.

Modified by cor-el

Chosen solution

jerryerp wrote:

Is it possible that Firefox prevents serverside includes (SSI) from functioning?

I don't see how. A browser can only botch client-side scripting like Javascript.

jerryerp wrote:

I realize that the fault no doubt lies with the apache2 configuration [...]

By default, SSI is only interpreted for special file extensions like .shtml. See the “Configuring your server to permit SSI” section of the Apache tutorial for details on how to change this.

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Chosen Solution

jerryerp wrote:

Is it possible that Firefox prevents serverside includes (SSI) from functioning?

I don't see how. A browser can only botch client-side scripting like Javascript.

jerryerp wrote:

I realize that the fault no doubt lies with the apache2 configuration [...]

By default, SSI is only interpreted for special file extensions like .shtml. See the “Configuring your server to permit SSI” section of the Apache tutorial for details on how to change this.

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But not entirely. In the first instance, I tried the .shtml route suggested in the docs section by adding the Options, Addtype, and AddOutputFilters lines to the .htaccess file in /.htdocs and renamed hello.html to hello.shtml. At first, this simply created a page listing the hello.shtml file. Then I moved the configuration changes to the httpd configuration file and restarted apache. The result was the same as I reported earlier. Changing the hell.pl reference in hello.shtml and the file name in the cgi-bin directory to hell.shtml gave the same result.

Next I tried the XBitHack method to yield the result I reported earlier. It seems then that something hidden in my configuration file is the problem. Thanks anyway.