No, the perl script does not have to be on the same server. I had a legit purpose for this once.. I needed to put a webpage up on one server that contained an online survey. That server would not give me rights for CGI scripts, so I redirected the form to a server that I did have CGI rights on, and ran the script there. Is that script on the other server readable globally? have you tried just pasting that url into the browser and seeing if you get something other than a 500 error?