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Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 22:52:58 -0500
From: Glenn <gs-apache-dev@gluelogic.com>
To: dev@httpd.apache.org
Subject: accessing userdir mapping info
Message-ID: <20031120035258.GA15238@netspace.org>
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There are numerous modules that provide "userdir" mappings in Apache.
mod_userdir (a standard module), mod_ldap_userdir, mod_dynvhost, ...
I'm sure there are others.

But there is no generic way that I am aware of for other modules to
access this information.  Apache2 mod_userdir sets "mod_userdir_user"
with the username and this note is required by suexec in Apache2.
But how well does this work with other userdir-mapping modules?
Does this bypass suexec mechanisms?

And what about access to the path to the userdir, which might not be
the homedir, and in any case other modules have no idea what suffix
(e.g. "public_html/") is appended to the homedir.


I'd love to see an generic method for other modules to access this
information.  The quickest would be to have the userdir-mapping modules
set notes in r->notes table such as "userdir_user" and "userdir_path".

Or would people prefer an optional registered function along the lines of
ap_get_userdir_info(request_rec *r, char **user, char **path)
that would fill in user and path, or set them to NULL if not a userdir
request?

I'm not sure which would be more efficient; a notes table lookup of
information set by the userdir-mapping module, or calling a function
which would require the userdir-mapping module to reparse the URI or
(possibly) remake expensive database queries.  (In such a case, the
userdir-mapping module might just as easily set its own private notes
(private in the sense of not intended for use by others) in the
r->notes table to avoid having to redo any lookups)

I'm happy to make the patches if there is support for this.
Thoughts?

Cheers,
Glenn