FastCGIExternalServer and AddHandler don't work correctly

[David Pashley]

Binary package hint: libapache2-mod-fastcgi

If you set up an external fastcgi server using FastCGIExternalServer and then anything under that path is passed to the external server, despite what ever AddHandler or SetHandler you have configured for fastcgi-script. An example of this problem is setting up a PHP fastcgi server and configuring apache to use it. Every file is passed through the php binary, which sets the content type to text/html, which breaks javascript and stylesheets.

I've tracked the bug down to the fixups function in mod_fastcgi.c, which looks to see if the file path is under a fastcgi server, and if it is, marks it as fastcgi-script. I've written a patch which only changes the handler if it isn't an external server, however I'm wondering the logic of automatically changing the handler, when it should be set in the config file using AddHandler and SetHandler.

beebo david% apt-cache policy libapache2-mod-fastcgi
libapache2-mod-fastcgi:
  Installed: 2.4.6-1
  Candidate: 2.4.6-1
  Version table:
     2.4.6-1 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/multiverse Packages
 *** 2.4.6-1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
beebo david% lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)
Release: 8.10

[David Pashley (david-davidpashley)]

I've tracked down this to a change in 2.2.13 from some point between 22-Sep-2002 and 22-Oct-2002 with the description in the changelog saying

 *) Eliminate the need for SetHandler or AddHandler with static or
    external applications.