[ic] Admin UI session problem; mysterious source? (again)

JT Justman interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com
Sun Nov 25 20:05:01 2001


I think I sent this message incorrectly the first time, but appologies if it
is recieved twice. I also added something I omitted.

Hi, everyone!

Using IC 4.8.1. The catalog is run through a hosting company. I think I am
the only customer they have who uses IC, but it's all I can afford for
development phase.

Everything worked fine until two things were updated.

1) The document root changed. I asked them to setup a URL rewrite, but I
think they might have simply changed my DocumentRoot to the link program,
i.e. /cgi-bin/cart.cgi/, so that all requested files pass through IC.

2) I was changed to a static IP.

I'm not sure which of the two (if it was) caused the problem.

First, and most apparent, the UI images were broken. This was the result of
the docroot change. In
any case, I changed the UI Images variable, but the fix wouldn't be final
till I restarted (which I don't have access to do) or did "apply changes".
Then I noticed a problem. I was getting lots of "maybe you need to log in"
and "no permission for page".

When I first opened the UI login, it would first send a cookie for the
session ID, then re-assign it immediately (different number). When I would
log in, it would re-assign the cookie over and over. As it turns out,
more-or-less one time for each of the missing images! So the final cookie
was not the same one I had logged in under.

Also, from the error.log

24.176.52.249 Y2rKMBf2:24.176.52.249 - [25/November/2001:16:53:07 -0700]
eden /~eden/cgi-bin/cart.cgi/interchange/en_US/B7.gif Runtime error: can't
open /home/eden/catalogs/eden/session/Y/2/Y2rKMBf2:24.176.52.249: No such
file or directory at
/usr/local/cpanel/3rdparty/interchange/lib/Vend/SessionFile.pm line 76

Why is the missing image at the beginning of this error?

So after several hours of searching and trying different things (checking
sessions settings, file perms, etc) and experimenting with cookies I
realized that I could simply accept the first cookie, then refuse all
others, and the site would function, more-or-less.

So, before I went to ask the oh-knowledgeable IC list, I did the
long-delayed apply changes. When I did so, the images came back. Then as I
started to compose my message, I cleared cookies, set it to prompt, and
logged in again. To my surprise, the problem had disappeared, the cookie was
assigned properly, and the site functioned perfectly.

So, is this just a coincidence (the "apply changes" fixed whatever was
causing the problem) or did the missing images actually cause the UI to
resend the cookie? Or am I nuts?

Thanks for any thoughts.

JT