Critical error "configuration error: couldn't check user. No user file?"

I'm fully convinced now that Apache just isn't my thing.

Environment: RHEL 4 w/ stock RPMs and one d/l of Nagios
Apache config: as per the Nagios instructions

<snip httpd.conf>
ScriptAlias /nagios/cgi-bin /opt/nagios/sbin
Alias /nagios /opt/nagios/share

<Directory "/opt/nagios/sbin/">
Options ExecCGI
AllowOverride AuthConfig
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
AuthName "Nagios Access"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /opt/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users
Require valid-user
</Directory>

<Directory "/opt/nagios/share/">
Options None
AllowOverride AuthConfig
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
AuthName "Nagios Access"
AuthType Basic
AuthUserFile /opt/nagios/etc/htpasswd.users
Require valid-user
</Directory>
</snip>

After running 'apachectl restart' and accessing the /nagios, I get an
http 500 error and:

<httpd/logs/error.log>
[Mon Dec 04 17:45:17 2006] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
[Mon Dec 04 17:45:19 2006] [notice] Apache/2.2.3 (Unix) PHP/5.1.6
configured -- resuming normal operations
[Tue Dec 05 14:38:56 2006] [crit] [client 10.51.100.131] configuration
error: couldn't check user. No user file?: /nagios/
</error.log>

I've gathered from the docs that 1.x apache is significantly different
that 2.x, so I've ensured that the following lines are at the top of
httpd.conf:

<httpd.conf>
LoadModule authz_user_module modules/mod_authz_user.so
LoadModule authn_file_module modules/mod_authn_file.so
LoadModule authz_host_module modules/mod_authz_host.so
</httpd.conf>

I've ensured that during my testing I've disabled SELinux (since that
can cause enough problems on its own). I created the htpasswd.users
files with htpasswd and put my name into it. Beyond that, googling
doesn't reveal any other useful tricks that I have been able to find.

Has anyone else experienced this sort of behaviour? Any ideas where I
should start troubleshooting?

On Dec 5, 10:05 am, Davide Bianchi <davideyeahs...@onlyforfun.net>
wrote:
> On 2006-12-05, kf4...@gmail.com <kf4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Environment: RHEL 4 w/ stock RPMs and one d/l of Nagios
> > [Tue Dec 05 14:38:56 2006] [crit] [client 10.51.100.131] configuration
> > error: couldn't checkuser. Nouserfile?: /nagios/Something make me think that you have SELinux turned on andno
> ACL to allowApacheto check the users'file.
>
> Try turning off SELinux.
>
> Davide
>

Hi Davide,

That's what I thought too, but running sestatus(8):

[root@strpnmis01 root]# /usr/sbin/sestatus -v
SELinux status: disabled

The box also boots with selinux=0 in grub.conf. I'm going to attempt
changing the ACL's just for giggles, maybe there's a bug.

More to come...