# Smokeping and Apache Server Question - Solved

## friendofpenguin

Hello all,

I am having trouble running smokeping. I guess that is not entirely correct. Actually Smokeping seems to work ok as it is incrimenting data and timestamps in the var/lib/smokeping/World directory. My problem is in accessing the CGI page. I have installed apache 2.2.6-r2 and smokeping 2.2.4. I followed the instructions at the end of the smokeping ebuild but when I try to goto localhost/cgi-perl/smokeping.cgi or smokeping.pl I get a 403 Forbidden error. I can put items in htdocs and they are served up fine. I guess I am looking for permissions to cgi-perl? Not really sure. 

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

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## selig

That is right, try looking into httpd.conf, or into the modules subdirectory (I am not using cgi-perl, so maybe it has got its own config there). Also note that you might need to add something like "-D CGI_PERL" into Apache options in /etc/conf.d/apache2 - I know that for example for SSL you need to add "-D SSL", for PHP it is similar.

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## friendofpenguin

Thanks for the reply. I was finally able to chase it all down. The config options I was looking for were in the config of the virtual host not the main server. Once I found that cgi started working but the java script pieces that are handed to the browser were being treated like cgi scripts by the server. Had to move them out of the directory tree that was script aliased. Once the directory was moved and the smokeping.template file was edited to reflect the new path, all is working as it should. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

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## dnedved

I'm glad this thread was here... I was getting rather frustrated with the config as installed by the ebuild, glad to see it's not just me.  So to summarize a few helpful hints:

- the ebuild installs a config file under modules.d but not under vhosts.d, you'll need to set up permissions under vhosts to actually access the perl script.  Worthless as installed.

- the ebuild installs the javascript under the perl directory, not in the htdocs where it belongs and will be treated appropriately, you need to move these somewhere appropriate (under the htdocs directory is a good start)

- the ebuild renames the cgi file to have a .pl extension, this is the same as smokeping.cgi which you'll find referenced in the admittedly sparse smokeping docs on the home page

- the ebuild tells you some of the steps you need to do after installing but is missing about half the steps

This ebuild is about 70% of the way there... what's there isn't bad (other than the cropper javascript being in a terrible location), but what's missing is the frustrating part.  I tried opening a bug for these issues but it was closed a few hours later because the admin said that ebuilds are not intended to contain documentation, you should go to the prodouct home page for that.  Oh well, I tried.  I think these are legitimate issues that at least deserve to have a low-priority bug to track them but the admin disagreed.

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