Question

Based on the information in AttachFailureAgain I tried making the Main directory by hand. Suddenly (with NO other changes) my file uploads started to work. Below is my original description of the problem.

This seems to be a Mac OSX problem. I have another TWiki installed on a BSD box (with Apache) and it's had no problems implementing file attachments. I'm not sure why OSX is having problems. It's definitely not an ownership or permission problem... I had to create the Main directory in "pub" to get file uploads to work (and then chown to www, even though the parent directory is already chowned to www).

Does anyone know enough about OSX (server, not desktop) to know why OSX is having problems with this?

-- EmmaJane - 07 Jun 2002

I get the following error message when I try to upload a binary file. Is this problem likely to be the same problem identified above?

Topic save error
During save of file Main.GettingAVPNClient an error was found by 
the version control system. Please notify your TWiki administrator.
/usr/bin/rcs -q -i -t-none -kb 
/Library/WebServer/Documents/help/Main/GettingAVPNClient/1.jpg,v 2>&1 1>/dev/null
rcs: /Library/WebServer/Documents/help/Main/GettingAVPNClient/1.jpg,v: 
No such file or directory
Go back in your browser and save your changes locally. 

• TWiki version: 01 Dec 2001
• Web server: Apache
• Server OS: OSX not sure of the version
• Web browser: IE6 and/or Moz 1.0 (same problem with both)
• Client OS: Win2000 (through a firewall or two and a VPN client -- editing ok)
• Client OS: Win2000 (now inside the firewall, same problem)

-- EmmaJane - 05 Jun 2002

I've talked to my system administrator and shown him this page. He seems to think that things are properly synced. I've checked the permissisons on the directory and everything should be fine.

I have another TWiki on a different machine and the file uploads do work there (BSD box instead of OSX). On that one when I upload a file I get two new directories in the pub dir. One with the name of the web and one with the name of the topic. On the OSX box (where I'm having problem) I'm not even getting the Main directory created. (But the directory one up is owned by www and is chomod 775.)

I've modified the attach.pl file to have: $CGI::DISABLE_UPLOADS = 0; (Just in case.) It didn't help.

When I run testenv.pl everything has the green "ok" -- The only warning I've got is the following:

User:www
Note: This is the user your cgi-bin scripts are executing.
Warning: Since your CGI script is not running as user nobody 
you need to change the locks in the *,v RCS files of the 
TWiki distribution from nobody to www.

But I get the same error on the TWiki that does work.

Does anyone else have any ideas? Could there be something in Apache that is preventing a file upload via HTTP?

• TWiki version: 01 Dec 2001
• Web server: Apache
• Server OS: OSX not sure of the version
• Web browser: IE6 and/or Moz 1.0 (same problem with both)
• Client OS: Win2000 (now inside the firewall, same problem)

Answer

Try setting the parent of the Main directory to writeable, using chmod 777 ... - this sounds like a permissions problem where the directory is not getting created, leading to a non-existent file error a bit later. Keep setting permissions in this tree to 777 until things work - if this works, you can then revert to 775 or 755, as long as the files are all owned by www.

I believe MacOS sometimes runs CGI scripts as the user owning the scripts rather than as nobody or www, but that depends on your setup. See MacOS for some more info. You can download an updated testenv from CVSget:bin/testenv, which may help.

You should be able to check the MacOS version through uname -a at the command line, if it is like other Unixes.

-- RichardDonkin - 01 Jul 2002

Could that be a timing problem? For example, the Main directory gets created first, then the TopicName sub-directory immediately after that. There is a problem if the creation of the Main directory has not finished before the creation of the sub-directory. To test insert a sleep just after the directory and sub-directory creation.

-- PeterThoeny - 02 Jul 2002