Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Security and Technology : Huge trouble with Hostgator and now I'M in huge trouble.

[CrazyPete]

I've got an email in to Brent and "Joseph" on the phone. Haven't heard back from Brent yet and have Joseph on the phone as I type.

The problem is this:

For some reason – all of a sudden my Rewrite (within .htaccess) commands are NO longer working. All of my Google URLs point to clean URL (written from dynamic) and now none of them work (returning 404 Errors)…

I’m dead in the water without them and I can’t seem to get beyond “Joseph” for help.

Please Please Please help. I have nowhere else to turn.

It looks like the last time Google indexed the page was March 31, 2012... so something had to have changed between then and now...

Any thoughts?

Please help,
Pete

[KMyers]

Hello,
Have you checked the "Error Logs" in cPanel to see what is causing the issue

[CrazyPete]

It comes back as file not found...

[KMyers]

Originally Posted by CrazyPete

It comes back as file not found...

Which file not found? Can you paste part of it (remove any personal items)

[CrazyPete]

Here is what happens...

You take a link like this:
http://www.mydomain.com/shop_pageloop.html

it is actually rewriting something like this:

http://www.mydomain.com/webstore/web...sion_id_place=

for each html file there is a "sister" file called whaterthefilenameis.cgi

for example:

pageloop.cgi

in this .cgi file there is the same exact code that looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$0=~s/\/usr\/home\/pmt\/webstore\///;
$0=~s/\.cgi//;
$ENV{QUERY_STRING}="page=$0.html";
$ENV{CONTENT_LENGTH}=length($ENV{QUERY_STRING});
#print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
#print "page=$0.html";
#exit;
system("/home/pmt/public_html/webstore/web_store.cgi");

On March 30-31 Google indexed it and all was fine. Now they are ALL coming back as 404. I finally gave up with "Joseph" from Hostgator - NASTY, RUDE, and VERY condescending. Just a HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE rep. I don't say this about too many people, but if he lost his job tomorrow I'd be ok with it. He didnt' care ONE BIT that I'm going to lose MY job over this. Totally Horrible.

NOTHING has changed on my side, I pleaded with him to help me, and I could here him "sigh" over the phone. He could care less.

This is a HUGE problem.

[CrazyPete]

Here is my htaccess file:

Options +FollowSymLinks ExecCGI FollowSymLinks +Includes

DirectoryIndex webstore/web_store.cgi index.cgi index.htm index.html

RewriteEngine on


#ScriptAliasMatch ^/shop_(.*)\.html /home/pmt/public_html/webstore/$1.cgi


#Browser shows old url
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/store/Html
RewriteRule ^store/(.*)$ /webstore/web_store.cgi?product=$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /store/Html/Images
RewriteRule ^store/(.*)$ /webstore/$1 [L]

#Sree 26 May 2006
#http://www.mydomain.com/shopitem/pic1430lg
#http://www.mydomain.com/webstore/web_store.cgi?keywords=pic1430lg&detail=yes&cart_id=6462826A24791&session_id_place=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/shopitem/Html
RewriteRule ^shopitem/(.*)$ /webstore/web_store.cgi?detail=yes&keywords=$1 [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /shopitem/Html/Images
RewriteRule ^shopitem/(.*)$ /webstore/$1 [L]

#Browser howes new URL
RewriteRule ^stores/(.*)$ /webstore/web_store.cgi?product=$1 [R,L]
#Alias /store/Html/Images /home/pmt/public_html/webstore/Html/Images

# -FrontPage-

IndexIgnore .htaccess */.??* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*

<Limit GET POST>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>
AuthName mydomain.com
AuthUserFile /home/pmt/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd
AuthGroupFile /home/pmt/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp

[CrazyPete]

Get this...

if you look at the htaccess file...

"shopitem" works fine and so does "Store"

It appears that only the one that works with the .cgi file I mentioned above (shop_) does not work...

Yet there is a # in front of the only code that deals with shop_ ???

I tried removing the # to see if somebody at HostGator made the change for some reason, and that didn't fix the problem either... except this time it returned an Internal Server Error...

Ugh. Help.

[foobic]

Originally Posted by CrazyPete

You take a link like this:
http://www.mydomain.com/shop_pageloop.html

The only thing that looks like it could rewrite that url is this:

Originally Posted by CrazyPete

#ScriptAliasMatch ^/shop_(.*)\.html /home/pmt/public_html/webstore/$1.cgi

but it's commented out. Have you tried just removing the initial # from that line?

On a more general note, your whole system looks like a nasty outdated insecure mess. A more thorough cleanup by an experienced developer would be highly recommended...

Edit: Ok, that sounds like progress. You'll find the reason for the 500 (internal server) error in your error log.

[CrazyPete]

foobic... I'm interested in how it can be made into a non-outdated insecure mess... thoughts?

Pete

[Loon]

Have you made any .htaccess changes recently, do you have a backup of a .htaccess file from prior to the errors?

[foobic]

Originally Posted by CrazyPete

foobic... I'm interested in how it can be made into a non-outdated insecure mess... thoughts?

I guess that would depend on whether the website has been built on a sound script that's been hacked around (the SEO-friendly links etc.) or if the underlying program is ancient / unsupported / insecure. A quick Google for web_store.cgi finds eXtropia web store - is it based on that?

[CrazyPete]

Yes. That webstore... please keep in mind all the "Issues" that it "had" are not an issue here.

[CrazyPete]

Loon, I found a very old version of .htaccess and that #ScriptAliasMatch is still commented out... so that's not the trouble...
Ugh.

[CrazyPete]

It appears that there was something done beyond my account that worked with the .cgi file and has now stopped working... The problem is I don't know what it was that was done in order to tell HostGator that this is the change they made... and they don't seem to know the change that was made in order to change it back or tell me how to make it so that it will work. I'm keeping this thread updated as things change with the hope that Brent will be along and see it... hopefully before search engines get hit with all the 404 errors that are being created.

[foobic]

Originally Posted by CrazyPete

Yes. That webstore... please keep in mind all the "Issues" that it "had" are not an issue here.

Right. Were they fixed by the same guy who devised that great system you described in post #5?

TBH, I'm wondering how this would ever have worked:

#!/usr/bin/perl

$0=~s/\/usr\/home\/pmt\/webstore\///;
$0=~s/\.cgi//;
$ENV{QUERY_STRING}="page=$0.html";
$ENV{CONTENT_LENGTH}=length($ENV{QUERY_STRING});
#print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
#print "page=$0.html";
#exit;
system("/home/pmt/public_html/webstore/web_store.cgi");

If your home directory is /home/pmt (should be something like that on most cPanel hosts) then why is the first line trying to substitute "/usr/home/pmt/webstore" out of the script filename?

To answer the earlier question I'd suggest abandoning this and migrating to something a little more current, unless you have a really good perl dev on standby.

Good luck...