[OT] Debian mailinglists [was: RE: Debian or Ubuntu?]

[Derek Broughton]

Les Mikesell wrote:

> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>
>>> But some configs are perfectly valid in situation A, but break your box
>>> or network in situation B.
>> 
>> Show me one that can't be predicted in advance.  You're denying that it's
>> deterministic.
> 
> What are the possible choices for RewriteRules or ProxyPass directives
> in an apache config?  You can verify that server won't crash with some
> contents you choose but not that it will actually function correctly or
> at all.  There are any number of configuration options where the entries
> are completely arbitrary.

You can't verify it any more if you hand-edit the file either.  So there's
no advantage there using a text editor.  However, if you really want to to
semantic validation too, this is a fine example - since I actually have had
to do this recently :-)

I have an apache server that proxies a bunch of Plone servers.  The rewrite
rules look like:

RewriteRule ^/cmb(.*) \
http://localhost:9080/VirtualHostBase/http/www.DOMAIN:80/cmb$1 [L,P]

So the first thing I do after adding one of these is:
# wget http://localhost:9080/VirtualHostBase/http/www.DOMAIN:80/cmb/
# wget http://www.DOMAIN:80/cmb/

The first verifies that the rewrite target is valid, and the second verifies
that the source is valid.  That would be easier to do in the config tool...
-- 
derek