[ic] IC 4.8.3 Configuration questions

[Paul Hoza]

Hello Folks,

Long time listener, first time caller.  (yeah, I know that's pointless, but 
it's fun to say.)

I have finally gotten Interchange 4.8.3 running (other than Foundation 
demo) on RedHat 7.1 from the .rpm install.  I have endured a huge amount of 
research and digging through the list archives to finally hit an 
operational catalog created using makecat.  However, I really don't feel 
confident that the end result is what I am supposed to have when compared 
to what I think I was "supposed to" have.  What I would like is to have 
your opinions about whether my current setup might cause any problems (for 
security, functionality, et.al.) on my system.  Here goes:

What I have:
I'm running IC as user 'interch' on a virtual dedicated server account, 
where I have multiple virtual sites set up with various domains.  I am only 
currently setting up catalogs for testing on one name-based domain, while 
the first functional IC catalog will be on another IP-based domain.

The Apache server is running SUEXEC (if that's the right way to describe 
it).  Additionally, the site administrator account's group has 'interch' as 
a group member, and permissions are set in such a way that all IC 
directories are owned by 'interch' and the cgi-bin/catprog is owned by 
'siteadmin.siteadmin', with perms at 755.

Here's what I've gotten to work: (please tell me if there are potential 
problems from any of this, as far as security or functions, etc.)  I'm 
using 'makecat' while 'su interch':
1. Catalog is set to use INET mode during makecat install.  (all attempts 
to use UNIX mode have failed for various reasons.  Primarily, the 'u+s' bit 
renders the catprogram useless with a 500 Int. Server error.  This seems 
contradictory to what I understand the settings should be for 
SUEXEC=on)  All INET settings are defaults during makecat.

2. /cgi-bin/catprogram is set to
	chown interch.interch
	chmod 755

3. /var/run/interchange socket is set to
	chmod 666

4. during catalog creation, I have to set /virtual/dir/cgi-bin to 'chown 
interch' in order to leave the perms to 755.  When catalog is finished 
installing, the owner is switched back to the site admin user.

That's about it.  It might seem weird for me to say that "everything's 
working.. so what's wrong?", but I'm a bit paranoid about this whole thing 
after having so much difficulty.

Thanks a lot for any advice you can send my way.

Best Regards,
Paul Hoza
NearlyEverything.com