Basic CGI InformationFrequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) on CGI.
There are different schools-of-thought on this subject. Strictly speaking, there is a difference. The difference lies in that "programs" are executed by the server, and "scripts" are interpreted by the server. CGI programs written in C tend to run 3 times faster than scripts written in Perl. In most cases this difference in speed is so small that it would only be noticeable in very large CGI's. Though C may be faster, Perl on the otherhand has access to a myriad of modules that make it possible to easily accomplish your CGI goals in contrast to using C. One of the main differences between Perl scripts and C programs is "portability". Perl scripts will run on any server that has Perl installed on it. On the other hand, "C" CGI programs must be compiled by the same operating system that the website is hosted on. If you compile a "C" CGI program on SGI Unix, you cannot then run the program on BSDI Unix.
2. What kind of CGI's can I run on the webserver?
You have the ability to run "C", Perl, and Shell CGI's.
"C" CGI's must be compiled on the SAME operating system version that you are going to run them on. If you do not have shell access to a server with the same version of UNIX as the one you are hosted on with us, you will then need to write a shell script that will compile the *.c file for you. We do not yet offer the service of compiling C programs for our customers.
An "Internal Server Error" can be caused by several things such as:
The answer is yes and no. If you use SSL, the e-mail will only be secure until the e-mail reaches the webserver,
after that the e-mail will be unsecure as it traverses the rest of the system. An alternative to using an e-mail form is
to use a form that will send the information to the webserver, then write the information to a file that you could view
with your web browser via SSL. A "Guest Book" script would accomplish this. Basically you would edit the HTML in a guest
book form so that it looks like you want it to. Then when people submit the data, the cgi script that the form utilizes
will write the data to the file that the guest book normally writes to. The next step is to create a password protected
directory for the file. You would then point your web browser to the file in the directory using an https prefix. At that
point you would be prompted for a username and password. Now you would be viewing the document securely. If you are not
familiar with HTML and setting up forms then this may not be an easy task to accomplish. Our Technical Support department
supports the unedited standard forms available through your website Control Panel, but we cannot assist in customizing
forms or scripts.
5. I am not familiar with scripting. Will technical support help me compose a simple script?
Unfortunately, there are no simple scripts worth composing. The very nature of the complexity of CGI programming (and its
time intensive requirements) prevent us from assisting with custom scripts. CGI programming is a "language", that in order
to be used effectively, must be learned just like a natural foreign language. The alternative is for you to utilize the many
CGI scripts/programs that can be found at the links listed at the bottom of this page.
Here is the list of Perl modules and related items installed on a webserver: Perl version: perl5.00503 Modules in addition to the standard Perl modules: Crypt-SSLeay-0.07 DBI-1.06 Data-ShowTable-3.3 Digest-MD5-2.04 GD-1.18 HTML-Parser-2.22 MIME-Base64-2.11 Msql-Mysql-modules-1.2017 Net-Telnet-3.01 URI-1.00 libnet-1.0606 libwww-perl-5.41 Also, by way of CyberCash, the following modules: In the directory, '/usr/local/perl5/site_perl': CCMckDirectLib3_2.pm CCMckErrno3_2.pm CCMckLib.pm CCMckLib3_2.pm
Yes, there is at least one suggestion. It is suggested that when you compose your CGI scripts, in lieu of using
"absolute server paths", that you, instead, use the evironmental variable "DOCUMENT_ROOT". The purpose for this is that
"absolute paths" in your scripts, such as "/u22/username/mydir/", are SERVER SPECIFIC. If you upgrade your account later,
which requires that your site be moved to server, say "u21" for example, your script paths would need to be
changed to /u21/username/mydir/. If your CGI's are written in C, you would need to edit the source, then recompile the code.
Yes, there is a way to serve up another page other than index.html. This is done using the "DirectoryIndex" option in your
.htaccess file. This method IS NOT recommended on accounts using FrontPage extensions.
Pending
Pending
11. What other resources can I look to for further CGI help? The following is a list of websites and newsgroups that you can visit for additional help.
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