How to use CGIs on Spinn.net

CGI scripts are fairly easy to setup and add a great deal of functionality to your website. Our favorite language for writing CGI scripts is Perl but we also support PHP3 and compiled C scripts. We do not provide a compiler for C programs but if you have a script compiled for Redhat Linux with the latest 2.0 series kernel it should work.
The first thing you'll need to do when using a CGI script is to create a cgi-bin directory in your public_html directory. This is where you'll keep your CGI scripts. If you're using Perl, make sure your script has the extension .cgi instead of .pl. Read on for more about how to make your script actually run.

We are currently running a program called cgiwrap to allow for better security and easier debugging with CGI scripts. This program does involve changi ng any CGI scripts you may have to run the new way. All you have to change is the path that calls the script. The old way something like the following:

To run under the wrapper program, you just call your script like this:

A little more typing but still pretty easy. A cool feature of the wrapper is that if you do the following:

the cgiwrapd will give you some debugging information about your script if it isn't working for some reason.
Running your script with the wrapper makes it much easier to write program s such as counters, polls, and guestbooks that require a script to write to a file. WIth t he wrapper, the program can easily write the file in your directory and no one elses.
This new wrapper also applies to any Server Side Includes (SSI) you may have on your website. If you have questions regarding any of this, please email me.

This page is like a man page, it's ugly but it works. If you have a problem with it, email sysadmin@spinn.net, it's his fault.