install of libapache2-mod-php5 may not result in enabled php

[Scott Moser]

Binary package hint: apache2

On a fresh ec2 instance of maverick i386, I tried:
$ sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5

That went fine, ending with:
| Setting up apache2-mpm-prefork (2.2.15-5ubuntu1) ...
| * Starting web server apache2
| ...done.
| Setting up php5-common (5.3.2-1ubuntu5) ...
| Setting up libapache2-mod-php5 (5.3.2-1ubuntu5) ...
|
| Creating config file /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini with new version
| * Reloading web server config apache2
| ...done.
| Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
| ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

However, php files were not being processed until a subsequent apache restart (or reload).

I suspect the problem is a race condition in /etc/init.d/apache2.
In this install case, apache is started, and very soon after the configuration is reloaded.

I was able to recreate the failure outside of install by:

$ sudo sh -xc 'service apache2 stop;
  sleep 3;
  a2dismod php5;
  service apache2 start;
  a2enmod php5;
  service apache2 reload;'

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: apache2.2-common 2.2.15-5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: User Name 2.6.32-305.9-ec2 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-305-ec2 i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jul 8 14:14:22 2010
Ec2AMI: ami-7e5db517
Ec2AMIManifest: ubuntu-images-testing-us/ubuntu-maverick-daily-i386-server-20100706.manifest.xml
Ec2AvailabilityZone: us-east-1b
Ec2InstanceType: m1.small
Ec2Kernel: aki-078e676e
Ec2Ramdisk: unavailable
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: apache2

[Clint Byrum (clint-fewbar)]

I was able to repeat the steps, and agree with your assessment that the "reload" signal is getting delivered before the server has even registered its signal handlers.

I set it to medium, because it might expose the php code of an unsuspecting user until they restart the server.

One workaround would be to restart, rather than force-reload, in libapache2-mod-php5.postinst. Since we're changing the server in quite a fundamental way by loading new modules, this is might be a good idea to do on libapache2-mod-*, as it would leave apache in a much cleaner state, at the expense of maybe interrupting a few connections in massive virtual hosting situations.

[Andreas Olsson (andol)]

I wonder if this is the explanation to the not necessarily fixed bug #403599?