CGI Instructions - Using the cgi-bin

There are three areas of detail, transfer of cgi scripts, permissions on cgi scripts and calling the cgi script from an html page that will affect whether or not your script(s) work correctly. Please read the instructions for each of these areas carefully before attempting to use the cgi-bin for the first time.

Transferring CGI Scripts
Follow the standard FTP Instructions to connect to the webserver. Once you have established a connection, switch to the "cgi-bin" directory before uploading your script and make sure that all CGI files are transferred in ASCII MODE

Permissions for CGI Scripts
Before a cgi script can run, you need to change it's file permissions so that it is executable by both the owner of the file and the group they belong to.

1. Click the right mouse button on the file that you have just uploaded, a pop-up menu will appear.

2. Select chmod (UNIX) from the pop-up menu, a window labeled "Remote File Permissions" will open.

3. Under "Owner" and "Group" click the check boxes labeled execute, do not change anything else.

4. When you have finished the previous step the following boxes should be checked - under "Owner" - read, write, and execute, under "Group" - read and execute, and under "Other" - read.

5. Click OK to finish.

Calling Your CGI Script
We are running a program called cgiwrap on our server to guard against "unsafe" cgi scipts. This will affect how you call your cgi script from an html document because you also need to call cgiwrap.

To call your cgi script correctly, please use this path:

http://edison.seattlecentral.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/[LOGIN]/[SCRIPTNAME]

Example
Your username is
jdoe0001

You have a script
public_html/cgi-bin/test.cgi

You can call your script with this URL
http://edison.seattlecentral.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jdoe0001/test.cgi

(Your script can have any name, and does not need to end in .cgi)