Arch Linux

bart

Member

Registered: 2007-07-12

Posts: 10

incomplete magic file in apache package

Hi,

The magic file (/etc/httpd/conf/magic) is far from complete. For example: jpeg and gif are defined, but png isn't. It describes actually just about 100 different file formats (grep -v ^# magic | sort | uniq | wc -l).

I came to this because my fresh mediawiki installation didn't allow me to upload png images. It took me a while to find out the problem, but it was fun. Just add the following line to /etc/httpd/conf/magic and png images aren't a problem anymore:

# PNG images
> 0     beshort         0x8950          image/png

So, my problem is solved

But this hack fixes only this single case; the magic file still lacks a lot of other file formats. Before I switches to Arch, I used Gentoo, so I checked the magic file on my old Gentoo box. Surprisingly the magic files on Arch and Gentoo were exactly equal, but with Gentoo I never had this problem.

The magic file in /etc/httpd/conf is coming from mod_mime_magic, which uses an (very) old version of the magic file from the package called "file". I suppose that the Apache on Gentoo uses the (recent) magic file from the file package, while Arch uses the (old) magic file included in the apache package.

I came up to some questions:
* Why not let apache use the recent (and maintained) magic file from the file package?
* Why not dump the outdated (and not maintained) magic file from the apache packages?

Last edited by bart (2007-07-12 19:31:40)

bart

Member

Registered: 2007-07-12

Posts: 10

Re: incomplete magic file in apache package

Yet an other question:
Why not make apache depend on file and replace in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

#MIMEMagicFile /etc/httpd/conf/magic

by

MIMEMagicFile /usr/share/misc/file/magic

?

[update]This doesn't work[/update]

Last edited by bart (2007-07-13 11:19:27)

bart

Member

Registered: 2007-07-12

Posts: 10

Re: incomplete magic file in apache package

Found out a bit more..

Mediawiki has a function called detectMimeType() to find out the mimetype of a file.
First it tries to use finfo_file(). That function is in the CVS version of PHP only.
Next it tries mime_content_type().
If mimecontent_type() fails, it falls back to getimagesize().

To use mime_content_type(), PHP has to be compiled with "--with-mime-magic". mime_content_type() uses independent of MIMEMagicFile in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf the /etc/httpd/conf/magic file. Logical, because it is a PHP thing and has nothing to do with Apache. Thats why changing MIMEMagicFile in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf to "/usr/share/misc/file/magic" doesn't work.

The PHP package for Arch is compiled with "--with-mime-magic", so thats why it uses the deprecated /etc/httpd/conf/magic . On my old Gentoo box it was compiled without, so Mediawiki falls back to getimagesize().

getimagesize() does much more than just figuring out the mimetype, but it knows somehow about PNG.

bart

Member

Registered: 2007-07-12

Posts: 10

Re: incomplete magic file in apache package

Adding this line to /etc/php.ini does fix it:

mime_magic.magicfile="/usr/share/misc/file/magic"

Last edited by bart (2007-07-13 11:32:08)