Hi the problem will most probably be that you need the full path to your script. It should definately work if you call it like:

system( "/usr/bin/perl /full/path/to/the/script.plx" )
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You are not bothering checking the return code (should be 0 if no error ) I am assuming an 0755 permissions mask (remember your CGI runs as user 'nobody' or 'apache' rather than user 'you' so it needs permissions to exec).

With your code you are using both the OO and the method call interface from CGI.pm - I have modified it to use just the method interface and have cleaned up the logic for you.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT

$|++;
use strict;
use CGI qw(:standard); # important shortcuts
use Fcntl qw(:flock);  # imports LOCK_EX, LOCK_SH, LOCK_NB

my $timestamp = localtime;
# this should be as suggested above "/usr/bin/perl /path/to/Kreports.p
+lx"
my $script_to_call = "./Kreports.plx";  
$TITLE = "Kim's Report Generator";
$LOGFILE = "/usr/tmp/KreportLog"; 

print header,start_html($TITLE),h1($TITLE);

if ( param('name') ) {
    # if we have a name we must have been called from our form
    if ( ( param('name') eq 'Kim' ) and ( param('passwrd') eq 'Knecht'
+ ) ) {
       &runReports(); 
    } 
    else {
        print "Unauthorized!\n";
    }
}
else {
    # no name param so show form
    print hr, start_form;  # hr() emits a horizontal rule: <HR>
    print p( $timestamp );
    print p( "User ID:", textfield( -NAME => "name" ) );
    print p( "Passwrd:", password_field( -NAME => "passwrd"));
    print p( submit( "send" ), reset( "clear" ) );
    print hr;
    print end_form;
}

##### Subs #####

sub bail {
    my $error = "@_";
    print h1("Unexpected Error"), p($error), end_html;
}

sub runReports {
    print "Generating Reports\n";
    my $exit_val = system($script_to_call);
    if ( $exit_val ) {
       print "<p>System call failed with an exit value $exit_val\n";
       print "<p>Let's see what a backtic exec shows us\n";
       print '<pre>', `$script_to_call`, '</pre>';
    }
}
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cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Strangely, this solution doesn't seem to work. All the permissions are wide open and there is no error reported from the system call. I placed an else clause in runReports() to indicate success but there is no print out from that either.

sub runReports {
   print "Generating Reports for $script_to_call\n";
   my $exit_val = system($script_to_call);
   if   ( $exit_val ) {
      print "<p>System call failed with an exit value $exit_val\n";
      print "<p>Let's see what a backtic exec shows us\n";
      print '<pre>', `$script_to_call`, '</pre>';
  } else { 
      print "<p>Look for reports in /home/donfox/BioDataProject/kim/Re
+ports";
  }
}
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The program just runs but no reports are generated. The driver script for the reports works fro mthe command line, both in the cgi-bin and back in it's own directory. ??? Tanks

This cretainly cleans up the logic. Tidy! But the resulting behavior is unchanged. No output from system(). I added an else to confirm that all went well in case of return of 0. No print out there either. Script runs and no reports! Permissions are everywhere wide open and Kreports.plx runs from command line on cgi-bin or at home.

You will have a path/permissions problem. Debugging 101 - simplify and distill. Make a very simple program:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "<h1>That worked!</h1>";
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Exec this via a system call from your CGI using a full path call - it should work without problems. If that is the case you have just isolated the problem to you reports script. You need to understand that the user, permissions and PATH on the command line often different from the CGI case. How they differ is setup dependent. Note that -T or taint mode stops you from doing things like system(param('script_to_exec')) as you need to untaint the value before you will be allowed to use it to do dangerous things.

It seems highly likely that you are not checking for the success of open() or DBI->connect within you report script (and these are failing) but without seeing code this is just a guess.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

To unbuffer STDOUT, add   $|++; to the top of your script, right before the   use strict; that you've accidentally commented out.

Thanks, Did that with no change in program behavior.

my $reportProg = "/some-path-to/Kreports.plx";
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my $reportProg = "/some-path-to/Kreports.plx";
system($reportProg) && do {
   my $errorMsg = "Could not run $reportProg - $!\n";
   # your additional error handling code here
};
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Kreports.plx runs correctly from the command line in both the cgi-bin and back in it's own directory. It uses absolute paths so in will run anywhere. The courious thing is that the check for return value doesn't produce anything. Ths cgi script runs but no result from system() either way and no reports.

sub runReports {
   print "Generating Reports for $script_to_call\n";
   my $exit_val = system($script_to_call);
   if   ( $exit_val ) {
      print "<p>System call failed with an exit value $exit_val\n";
      print "<p>Let's see what a backtic exec shows us\n";
      print '<pre>', `$script_to_call`, '</pre>';
  } else { 
      print "<p>Look for reports in /home/donfox/BioDataProject/kim/Re
+ports";
  }
}
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Are you getting a </html> tag at the end of the page ?. If not, check the Apache error_log.
poj

Is Kreports.plx silently failing perhaps? Remember that the user running your CGI prog will be the same user that is running Kreports.plx. Does that user (e.g nobody) have permission to create a file in /home/donfox/BioDataProject/kim/Reports?

Seeing as we don't know what Kreports.plx is actually doing, make sure that it can run successfully on the command line as the same user that runs your CGI prog.

Update: Obviously you will not be able to run Kreports.plx on the command line as user 'nobody' but you should still check to see if user 'nobody' has permission to do all the things Kreports.plx will need to do when generating the reports.

-- vek --