[plug] Apache Problems

[Christian]

Hi all,

I'm trying to work out how I can get the username provided through HTTP
authentication and pass it to a CGI.  I figure it's part of the headers
of the environment or something so I'm trying to run the standard
test-env shell script from a directory that has a .htaccess file (it
appears that .htaccess files are ignored in the cgi-bin directory) so I
can work it out.

Unfortunately I can't seem to get Apache to execute CGI scripts in a
directory other than the ScriptAlias.  If I configure:

<Directory  /home/staff/again/public_html/>
AddHandler cgi-script cgi
Options +ExecCGI
allow from all
</Directory>

My browser returns:
Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /~again/test-env.cgi on this server.

And the error log says:
[Mon Feb 28 13:51:34 2000] [error] [client 203.153.224.45] Options
ExecCGI is off in this directory:
/home/staff/again/public_html/test-env.cgi

If I move it to, say /var/www/test (where /var/www is the DocumentRoot)
and add a .htaccess file:
AuthName Radius
AuthType Basic
Options ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script cgi

require user again

Then Apache just gives me a copy of the script...

Can anyone suggest a) how to find out the HTTP username from a CGI
script and/or b) Why Apache is not doing what I want?

Thanks,

Christian.