On 2025-08-28 06:45, Ron via Talk wrote:
Michael Galea via Talk wrote on 2025-08-26 16:11:
I tried to follow your original instructions. I think that, because I fixed the problem in the spring by editing a file systemd file directly, the systemd edit process failed on me, going very strange.
Huh, I'm now curious on what went wrong.
But after trying to repair systemd for a while I just directly created a /etc/systemd/system/lighttpd.service.d directory containing an override.conf which set ProtectHome=no. That worked fine.
Well, since it's working, that's great.
Same result as `systemctl edit lighttpd` but manual.
PS: systemd is really sticky. Uninstalling and reinstalling lighttpd was not enough to reset its state on lighttpd.
I did a few searches on the topic and didn't find much, but Debian is providing the packaging and so they created the systemd unit file as best I can tell.
Seems like they haven't really documented that, for CGI scripts hosted outside /var/www/cgi-bin one needs to make the ProtectHome=no change.
I have no idea how common it is these days for www.domain.tld/~user/cgi- bin/script.pl or whatever. Don't think I've seen such an URL for a long time, so I assume it's rare now.
Except for putty, and they paid the price for it by having someone else register putty[dot]org and post anti-vax nonsense there. Oops.
Putty, the only ~/user URL still in existence:
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
They had to register https://putty.software just this month because they stayed on the URL above for way too long.
But, lots of people who use CGI also use lighttpd, so it probably should be clearly mentioned in the documents.
Thanks for the update.
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Hi Ron, Fist of all, I know I created the problem in the first place by editing a systemd component that contained configuration data. The proper way to solve the problem, with systemd edit kept configuration changes in /etc, where I back it up. I'm happy with that. I went back to the console that I used to run the command and found: mg:/etc/systemd# systemctl edit lighttpd.service Found modifications outside of the staging area, which would be discarded. /etc/systemd/system/lighttpd.service.d/override.conf: after editing, new contents are empty, not writing file. So the problem was systemd detecting and complaining about my changes to /lib/systemd/system/lighttpd.service. i have since practiced systemd edit on both some projects I have written that used systemd and on the working lighttpd service file. Both edits now work fine. -- Michael Galea