CGIFAQ

Domain Name Registration Service FAQ
Website Hosting Service FAQ
E-Mail FAQ
Security FAQ
URL Forwarding Hosting Service FAQ
Control Panel/Passwords FAQ
FTP FAQ
CGI FAQ
MySQL FAQ

What are CGI scripts?

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a process used by the server to pass information between the user and an application on the server. With CGI access, you can install Perl scripts on your website for such things as feedback forms, guestbooks, counters, and so on.

What information and server paths do I need to run a CGI script?

CGI scripts must be run from the cgi-bin directory which is outside the public_html directory. CGI scripts need to have a .cgi or .pl extension. PHP scripts need to have a .php extension.

cgi-bin relative path = /cgi-bin/yourscript.cgi
cgi url = http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/yourscript.cgi
path to Perl = /usr/bin/perl
path to sendmail = /usr/sbin/sendmail
path to the date program = /bin/date

Do you know where can I find some free CGI scripts?

Here are a few resources for CGI scripts:
HotScripts
FreeCode
The CGI Resource Index
Free-Scripts.Net
Script Search

My CGI script is not working, can you help me with it?

Our support does not cover CGI script debugging. We consider this a function of web design and we do not currently offer any in-house web development or consulting services.

Here are a few things to try when you are troubleshooting a CGI script:

First of all, thoroughly read through the instructions that came with the script and also check the website where the script was downloaded for troubleshooting info and user forums.  Make sure that you have uploaded your script to your cgi-bin which is one level up from your public_html directory.

Check to see if the script was uploaded to the server in the proper format (ASCII not binary).

Make sure that there are not any DOS/Windows carriage returns (i.e., ^M) at the end of each line in the script. This is usually caused by a text editor or FTP program that is not properly uploading your script in a Unix/Linux format. If this is happening, try changing your code line break settings or upload settings to Unix/Linux.

Here's how this is done in Dreamweaver: From the menu, goto Edit > Preferences > Code Format, then change Line Breaks to "LF (Unix)".

The ^M is actually the ASCII LF character. Windows uses CR/LF, Mac uses CR and UNIX uses LF as line terminators. Most FTP programs translate the line terminators when doing an "ASCII" or "text" transfer, but they do not do the translation if it is a binary transfer. The problem with CGI files is that the FTP program may not recognize the extension, so it assumes that it is a binary file. Turning off the auto detect feature and manually transferring the CGI files as ASCII should solve your problem. Another option would be to add .cgi/.pl to the list of ASCII file extensions.

Check script to make sure that magic comment specifies where perl is located: #!/usr/bin/ perl

Verify that all the paths are correct, including your public directory path. Do not use the "www" part of your domain in your public directory path. See our server paths section for more info.

Check to see if all the file permissions are set correctly. Permissions can be set using an FTP program that allows permissions to be set on transfer. Typically scripts are set to be 755, user: read, write, execute; group: read, execute; other: read, execute (-rwxr-xr-x), but you should always check your script instructions or README to be sure.

PLEASE NOTE: For security purposes, within the cgi-bin, script permissions cannot be set higher than 755, or user: read, write, execute; group: read, execute; other: read, execute (-rwxr-xr-x).
If you have checked all the above and are still receiving an "Internal Server Error" when trying to execute the script, check the domain's error_log file (on cPanel).  Most likely you will see a "Premature end of script headers" error which usually means that the file has been corrupted in some way. This can occur when the script is uploaded or when the script is edited and saved in certain text editors. Usually the file is corrupted with the (line feed) hidden character which is commonly mistaken with the (carriage return).

Since installing a CGI script is extremely difficult for new webmasters, you may want to consider asking a friend with CGI experience to walk you through the process or hire a webmaster for this part of your site.

Here are a few good online articles on installing CGI scripts that might help:

Setting Up A Form Powered By CGI (SitePoint)
How To Install A Script (About.com)
CGI Scripts for Fun and Profit (webmonkey)
The Common Gateway Interface (NSCA)

Finally, if all else fails, you may want to consider using a PHP script.

I'm having difficulty setting up CGI scripts, are there any other alternatives?

Yes, check out PHP. It is much easier to configure (no permissions to set, it can run from any directory, etc.) and much of what you can do with a CGI script you can do using PHP. The development community for PHP is gigantic, so you will see more and more applications that will be using it in the years to come.

How do web users setup CGI scripts? Do they need to use a cgi-bin?

Web users (i.e., http://domain/~username) do not need to use the site's main cgi-bin. They can setup CGI scripts to run anywhere within their web space.