Re: [webmin-devel] Debugging and Shorewall module

[Hugo C. <hug...@ya...>]

I use two independent debugging techniques when developing webmin/apache modules:

1. The first one is a kind of logging, complementary to what webmin already does.  Webmin logs to a single file for all requests, I log to a set of rotating files, each file contains a information of the execution of cgi script.  The implementation of this can be found in the sesa scripts, a small application framework on top of webmin (available on sourceforge.net/projects/sesa, the specific files that implement the feature are Sems.pm and Persistency.pm).  The advantage of these log files is that they don't fill your disk (they are rotating), and give you a good history of what a user has done in the recent past.  The disadvantage is obviously performance.

2. From CPAN, there is a module Devel::ptkdb that allows to do source code debugging, also for cgi scripts running on a remote server.  To do this, you set the DISPLAY variable to your display (where your browser is runnning), in a very first _BEGIN_ block in your cgi script.  Then, second, you use the interpreter sequence '#!/usr/bin/perl -d:ptkdb' to call the debugger.  Then, make a request to the server, such that it executes your cgi script.  Perhaps small changes are required to the webmin configuration, I am not entirely sure about it (e.g. to fork cgi scripts ?).  I have used this technique a lot for debugging complicated cgi scripts.


Hugo


Paul Gear <pa...@ge...> wrote: Hi folks,

I've made a few useful (i think) changes to the Shorewall module, and i
plan to make a few more before i send in the patches.  However, i would
like to do some more testing & debugging, and i'd like to know what sort
of debugging tools are at my disposal.

>From what i can tell, the Perl errors from my module actually go nowhere
at all.  Is this correct/intended?  What is the preferred mechanism to
capture Perl errors and produce debug output?  I've experimented with
saving temporary files using a technique i borrowed from another module,
and that seems to work sometimes, but not always (and possibly is
dependent upon the actual path used).  I'm confused!  :-(

Thanks in advance,
Paul

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