Somehow when I updated the attribute server last night a bogus .htaccess file got pulled in. This file caused an Internal Server Error each time the attribute server was accessed.
The goal of the file was to prevent unauthorized access to the Attribute Control Center. The problem was that it used a directive which works on the Annotator SEED, but not in the attribute server. so every use of a CGI script on the attribute server failed with a message about an error in the .htaccess file. The tricky part of fixing it was allowing general access to the attribute data without allowing general access to the control center. I accomplished this using a FilesMatch directive, a process which I believe will be causing me nightmares for several weeks.
Anyway, the attribute server is back, and is considerably more secure than it used to be.
Leave a comment