CGI on an Apache Server

• Create the following entries in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf for the Apache server that allows cgi files to be recognized and executed. [It's best to copy the entries that are there and change the paths]
  • ScriptAlias /~wsummers/cgi-bin/ "/home/wsummers/public_html/cgi-bin/"
  • <Directory "/home/wsummers/public_html/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options ExecCGI
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    </Directory>
• This requires that you put all cgi files in your cgi-bin directory under public_html (make sure to chmod 755 on cgi-bin)
• If you are using perl, the first line of your program must be #!/usr/bin/perl
• This will envoke the perl interpreter which will interpret and execute your program
• Don't forget to chmod 755 on all of your perl programs
• Before you test your programs over the Internet, you can also run your perl program locally by typing ./filename (e.g. ./hello.pl where hello.pl would be the name of a perl program)
• Does your perl program report that the file or directory is missing when you type ./hello.pl but when you type perl hello.pl it works fine.
  If you create your perl program on your PC and save it there, you might have this problem. [this will happens if you ftp your file over to a linux(unix) system using binary mode]
  To fix it,
  1. make sure that #!/usr/bin/perl is the first line
  2. make sure the second line is blank
  3. if that still doesn't work, use pico or vi to add another blank line and then remove it. [UNIX and DOS terminate lines differently.]
• Let me know if you have any trouble

Examples

• Hello World   Hello World (Source Code)
• Simple   Simple (Source Code)

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