Powered By Network Solutions: Using CGI Scripts

What is CGI?

CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. You can run CGI scripts written in a scripting language such as Perl, PHP, or shell scripts. When using CGI scripts, you can add interactive and dynamic content to your Web page. You can have your own WWWBoard to let your users interact, run your own website poll, or keep track of your visitors.

Java Servlets - definition and support

Java Servlets are like CGI scripts, except that they are programmed in Java. Currently, we do not support Java Servlets.

Available file extensions for scripts

• Perl scripts must have a .pl or .cgi extension.
• PHP scripts can have the following extensions: .php, .phtml, .php3, .php4., and/or .php5
• Python scripts must have a .py extension.
• SSI files must have a .shtml or .shtm extension.

The path to Perl (UNIX platform only)

The path to Perl is: /usr/local/bin/perl
 

Script restrictions

All scripts have the following run time and language support limitations:

• Run time: All PHP/CGI/Perl scripts are limited to a 60-second run run time. If your script does not complete during that time, it will be killed. We cannot allow custom scripts to impact the performance of other customer sites on our shared hosting platform.
• Language support: We support almost any Perl, PHP, or shell script. You cannot run CGI scripts written in C++, Visual Basic, or some other language.

Language support restrictions

We do not provide support for custom code or custom scripts. We assume that if a customer is using CGI scripts, he/she has the necessary programming skills to manage these scripts. The tools we provide are meant only for advanced users and for users who are knowledgeable enough to manage their scripts using those tools.

If you have limited experience or knowledge about server-side scripting and troubleshooting custom code, we strongly recommend that you look into hiring a web developer to assist you. As your host, we are only responsible for hosting your files on our platform and providing the proper hosting environment. To learn more about language and restrictions, please see our Terms of Service.

There are, however, several exceptions in which we will consider troubleshooting your custom code/scripts. If your issues resulted from any of the following, we would do our best to assist you:

• Platform Migration - In cases of upgrading or switching platforms. We will troubleshoot scripts that worked on the old platform prior to migration, but do not currently work on the new platform (Only within 2-3 weeks after migration).
• FormMail.pl - We can attempt to troubleshoot individual copies of the generic FormMail.pl that is available from open source repositories on the Web. Yet, we cannot troubleshoot this script if it has been extensively customized or if it is v1.92, which is not the most recent version. Also, we cannot support other form processor script issues using our mail programs: Sendmail and PHPMail. We recommend and will support our form processor script. For more information, go to your PowerPack.
• Servers - Scripts that worked for weeks/months and have no modifications done, but suddenly stopped working.
• Scripts - We provide all server-side scripts as a part of your plan.
• Fulfillment - Your plan includes access to CGI and/or another server-side scripting, but no scripts function on your account.

This section covers common issues you may encounter when using CGI scripts.

• Read Your CGI Error Log
• My Script Can't Find File Paths
• Why Is My Script Returning a Server 500 Error?

Read Your CGI Error Log

1. To access the CGI Error Log, go to Hosting Summary at the top.
2. Click on Scripting Config on the left pane.
3. Then, look for the Server Side Includes & CGI tile and click on the Manager Server Side Includes & CGI link.
4. Next, click View Error Log under Actions. 

When reading a CGI error log, the first thing to remember is that errors are appended to the end of the error log. You'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the log to see the latest entry.

When your CGI application records an error in your log, a few pieces of information are recorded along with it. Following is an example that has been broken down into further detail:

Sample error:

20120622T165202: <host name>/file.php Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /path/to/file.php on line 33

The first part of the log entry is the date and time that the error occurred (always shown in Eastern Time):

• 20120622T165202 = June 22, 2012 at 4:52:02 PM
• Year: 2012
• Month: 06
• Day: 22
• Time: 16:52:02 PM

The second part of the log entry is the URL to the file that generated the error:

• <host name>/file.php

The final part of the entry is the error itself:

• Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /path/to/file.php on line 33

If you're not sure what a particular error means, you may be able to search online to find more information about the error. When you search online, you may need to remove the information that's specific to your site (such as your domain or the server path) to find useful results.

My script worked fine yesterday, but now it says it can't find the path to my files. What happened?

As part of our ongoing system maintenance, we sometimes add new devices to help improve the performance of customer websites. As a result of the new hardware, customer CGI scripts (Perl, PHP) and databases that use 'real' directory paths may cease to work.

If you are using real directory paths (paths that start with '/hermes/webxx/'), you need to replace them with the correct symbolic paths ('/home/users/web/'), which are fully compatible with our shared hosting architecture.

Why is my script returning a Server 500 error?

Explore the following possibilities to troubleshoot:

• Does your account include CGI accessibility?
• Did you call your script with the correct URL?
• Did you upload it to the correct directory?
• Does your script expect values? If so, did you use the right method (POST/GET)?
• If you edited path variables in the script, are they correct?
• Are you sure you uploaded the script in ASCII mode? You will have to upload them in ASCII mode to make them work.
• It's possible that the .htaccess coding (if coded improperly) could be causing the 500 error.

Since RSS is a file format and not a scripting language, you can publish RSS files directly in your web directory. To automatically generate an RSS file based on your website's content, you can use a server-side script (such as when using CGI scripts), a client application running on your local PC, or you can generate it manually.

This guide has provided an overview of using CGI scripts on our hosting platform. We've covered the basics of CGI, important script restrictions, and detailed troubleshooting steps for common issues like reading the CGI error log and fixing Server 500 errors. Understanding these fundamentals is key to successfully adding dynamic content to your website.