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Knowledgebase
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Part Five
- CGI-bin
Applications
- Where
to Put CGI-bin Scripts
Paths to Date, Mail, Perl, etc.
Setting Permissions
Troubleshooting CGI-bin
Problems
- Akopia
Shopping Cart
Scripts preconfigured:
All information for use is located in you control panel, also a
feature list is located in your control panel to explain each feature.
Counter
Clock
Countdown
Guestbook
Random Html
Formmail
Banner Ads
Setup Search Engine
Rebuild Search
Chat Room
- PGP
Mail
CGI-bin
Applications
CGI stands for "Common
Gateway Interface," a fancy name meaning computer programs running
on the webserver that can be invoked from a www page at the browser.
The "bin" part alludes to the binary executables that result from
compiled or assembled programs. It is a bit misleading because cgi's
can also be Unix shell scripts or interpreted languages like Perl.
CGI scripts need to be saved in ASCII format and uploaded to your
server's cgi-bin in ASCII or text format. This is very important.
Where
to Put CGI-bin Scripts
Put your cgi-bin
scripts in the public_html subdirectory named "cgi-bin".
Paths
to Date, Mail, Perl, etc.
Here are your
paths to the common server resources that CGI scripts often require:
| Sendmail: |
/usr/sbin/sendmail |
| Perl5.6: |
/usr/bin/perl |
| Date: |
/bin/date |
| Non web directory
path: |
/home/username |
| Web directory
path: |
/home/username/public_html
(puts you in your web directory) |
| Cgi-bin
path: |
/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin |
| Cgi Wrapper path: |
/home/username/public_html/scgi-bin |
Setting Permissions
The following is
a simple explanation of file permissions in Unix. To list the access
permissions of a file or directory, telnet to your server, then:
cd directoryname
to change the directory
until you are either in the directory above the file you are interested
in, or above the directory you are checking.
Type: ls -l filename
and you will see
what the current permission settings are for that file, along with
a bunch of other stuff.
Examples
of using chmod:
| PEOPLE |
PERMISSIONS |
| u
= the file's user (you) |
r
= read access |
| g
= the file's group |
x
= execute access |
| o
= others |
w
= write access |
| a
= the user, the group, and others |
|
To change permissions
for a file named filename.cgi, you need to chmod the file (change
mode). For example, when you type this:
chmod u=rwx,g=rx,o=rx
filename.cgi or chmod 755 filename.cgi
you've given:
read, execute, and write access to the user (that's you)
read and execute access to the group and
read and execute access to others
Some scripts will
tell you to chmod 755 (for example). Doing the above is the same
thing as typing chmod 755. You can use either method with our Unix
servers. Let me explain:
When using the
numeric system, the code for permissions is as follows:
r = 4 w = 2 x = 1 rwx = 7
The first 7 of
our chmod775 tells Unix to change the user's permissions to rxw
(because r=4 + w=2 + x=1 adds up to 7. The second 7 applies to the
group, and the last number 5, refers to others (4+1=5).
When doing an ls
-l on the file, telnet always shows the permissions this way:
-rwxr-xr-x
Ignore the first
dash, then break up the above into three groups of letters. If there's
a dash where a letter should be, it means that there is no permission
for those people.
Remember: the first
3 apply to user, the second 3 apply to group, and the third 3 apply
to others.
Some FTP clients
support changing permissions in a more graphical way. If you have
Fetch for the Mac, you have an easy way to change permissions. Go
to the file you want to change the permissions on, and highlight
it. Under the Remote menu, select Change Permissions. A window will
pop up showing the current permissions for the file you had highlighted,
as in Figure 3A below. Click on the boxes to change permissions
as needed.
Figure
3A
WS_FTP accomplishes
the same task as above. Just highlight the file you want to check,
and right-click on it. A menu will pop up, then select CHMOD. You
will see the window below, as in Figure 3B.
Figure 3B
Troubleshooting
CGI-bin Problems
Below are
solutions to some of the more common CGI script problems, in question
and answer format.
When I activate
my CGI program, I get back a page that says "Internal Server Error.
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and
was unable to complete your request."
This is generally
caused by a problem within the script. Log in via Telnet and test
your script in local mode to get a better idea of what the problem
is. To do this, go into the directory in which your script is located,
then execute the script. To execute the script, you can do it by
two ways:
1) Type "perl myscript.pl"
(Perl being the language interpreter in this case).
2) Or simply type
"myscript.pl" alone, that will work if the first line is well written
to indicate the location of Perl.
The first one is
useful to see if there's any error IN your script. The second one
is useful to test if your "calling line" (the first line of the
script) is okay, i.e. if you entered the right location of Perl.
I am being told
"File Not Found," or "No Such File or Directory."
Upload your Perl
or CGI script in ASCII mode, not binary mode.
When I test
my Perl script in local mode (by Telnet), I have the following error:
"Literal @domain now requires backslash at myscript.pl line 3, within
string. Execution of myscript.pl aborted due to compilation errors."
This is caused
by a misinterpretation by Perl. You see, the "@" sign has a special
meaning in Perl; it identifies an array (a table of elements). Since
it cannot find the array named domain, it generates an error. You
should place a backslash (\) before the "@" symbol to tell Perl
to see it as a regular symbol, as in an email address.
I am getting
the message "POST not implemented."
You are probably
using the wrong reference for cgiemail. Use the reference /cgi-bin/cgiemail/mail.txt.
Another possibility is that you are pointing to a cgi-bin script
that you have not put in your cgi-bin directory. In general, this
message really means that the web server is not recognizing the
cgi-bin script you are calling as a program. It thinks it is a regular
text file.
It's saying
I don't have permission to access /
This
error message means that you are missing your index.htm file. Note
that files that start with a "." are hidden files. To see them,
type ls -al. If you wish to FTP this file in, go to the home/yourdomain
directory.
PHP
and SSI
PHP
PHP
is an excellent way to embed scripting languages such as C, Java,
and Perl into your website's pages. It is a very efficient way to
implement advanced tasks such as database queries, as well.
You
can implement and maintain a mySQL database entirely with the use
of PHP as well. For more information on writing in PHP, stop by
www.php.net.
SSI
When
using a UNIX system it is sometimes necessary to enable certain
HTML files executable for the purpose of using SSI. Server Side
Includes are often used to run a cgi script. An include is called
with an example such as this: <!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/example.cgi"-->
After you insert your include, you must mark the HTML file as executable
so the server will parse the file. This is done using one of two
options.
1.)
Renaming the file to .shtml: On our server any file name .shtml
will be parsed. So instead of having an index.html file, you would
name it index.shtml. This is the easiest way of enabling includes.
2.)
CHMODing the file to 777: With CHMOD 777 you can also mark a file
as executable. It is important to only make the files which you
want parsed executable. This poses certain security issues, as well
as a strain on our resources, as the processor has to work harder
to parse a file.
Reasons
for Using SSI:
SSI is often used to include something into an HTML page. You
can insert the contents of one HTML page into another page. An example
of a practical usage for this would be to include your e-mail address
at the bottom of each page. If you do this as an include, then when
your e-mail address changes, you will only have to update it on
one page and not your entire web site. Another usage is to call
cgi scripts into action. Many counters, clocks, and other scripts
are called using SSI. The command used will most likely be provided
in the documentation of your cgi script.
More
Help for using SSI can be found at:
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/docs/tutorials/includes.html
http//bignosebird.com/ssi.shtml
http//getscript.com/ssi.shtml
http//carleton.ca/~dmcfet/html/ssi2.html
http/sonic.net/~nbs/unix/www/ssi/
http//useforesite.com/tut_ssi.shtml
Akopia
Shopping Cart:
We do not offer tech support this script
The
Akopia Shopping Cart allows you to set up an online store selling
goods and services through your secure server.
To
see a live example Click Here.
For
further information on using the cart see this
page.
A
full set of help files for the shopping cart is available at http://help.akopia.com/4.6.0/
These help files are also linked from within the Akopia Cart administration
section that you can log into through your control panel.
There is more help here: http://help.ic.redhat.com/cgi-bin/ic/admin/help
Where is the cart?
You activate the shopping cart by going into the control panel,
clicking on tools and then the shopping cart icon.
The
cart files are located at yourdomain.com/cart/ BUT they must be
accessed through these addresses:
Customer
entry:
http://yourdomain.com/~username/cgi-bin/cart.cgi/index.html
(This
is the page you need to link to from your main web site).
Admin
entry:
http://yourdomain.com/~username/cgi-bin/cart.cgi/admin/index.html
How to get the checkout pages to run under the secure server.
Log into the admin center.
Click on "Preferences"
Click on "Directories and Paths"
6th on the list will be SECURE_SERVER.
Type in: https://servername.com/ (get your servername from Support)
Click on the OK button.
Your
Checkout pages will now be run under the secure server.
Real
time payment gateways
We are currently working with Akopia.com on integrating the shopping
cart with a real time payment gateway and Merchant Account service.
Agora
Shopping Cart
We only offer basic support for this script. Support may also be
found at http://agoracgi.com
PGP
To generate your own unique public/private key pair:
~$
/usr/local/bin/pgpk -g
It
will then walk you through to set up your key
Then
you have to extract it to bring it to your PC
The
two files are
~#
pgpk -x userid -o keyfile
The
key files are:
pubring.pkr
secring.skr
Note: If you can
access your control panel, you should not use these addresses,
instead, use the support form in your control panel. This makes
support much easier and includes information we need to process your
request.
If you can not access your site or your control panel,
and need support use the link below:
-Open a trouble ticket using email to:
support@scorpionsystems.net
Make sure to include:
-Your Domain Name
-Username
-Problem you are having
-Address we can reply to
-Control panel password to verify your account
(important!)
Before you e-mail support,
it is a good idea to consider that if a problem is server or network
wide, we know about it. We have several systems montioring our servers
and they notify us when there is a problem.
Note: We do not offer telephone support at this time.
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