Using CGI


CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface.  It is a way of allowing a web server to support scripting (as opposed to merely serving up fixed, static web pages).  CGI is not a language itself, but is a way of running scripts written in languages including PERL32 and ASAPI Perl.  Thousands of shareware scripts exist on the Internet that you can run.  Here is a brief explanation of how it all works.  Please note that if you are running Front Page 98, it creates its own directory called cgi-bin.  If you want to run one of our prewritten scripts, you will refer to it as being in a directory "cgi-master" instead of cgi-bin.

When we create your website, we create two extra directories: cgi-bin and cgi-custom.  CGI-BIN is a "virtual directory" with a link to our shared CGI directory.  This directory (which is invisible to your FTP program) contains scripts which we will describe below.  If you have FP98 extensions installed, this will be called and referred to as "cgi-master".

We have also created a directory called "cgi-custom".  You can put your own CGI scripts in this directory.  Make sure you don't create a new directory called "cgi-bin" (one has already been created by us or by FP98), as this can have unforseeable results.  You can place your Perl scripts in here and execute from this directory.

SAMPLE SCRIPTS
We currently provide the following sample scripts which are accessible by reference to a directory called cgi-bin.  References are made as follows:

 /cgi-bin/scriptname.pl   OR   http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/scriptname.pl

If you are using FP98 and want to use one of our scripts, you would refer to it as
                   /cgi-master/scriptname.pl   OR
                   http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-master/scriptname.pl

formmail.pl
This formmail script is used to send the contents of a form filled out on a web page to a specified email account.  The page invokes the script, telling it to process the form on the page, and send its contents to a specific email account.