Apache reads scripts as html, not cgi

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: Apache reads scripts as html, not cgi by blakem (Monsignor) on Jul 04, 2001 at 03:16 UTC
Without seeing your configuration, its hard to determine exactly what is wrong... However, it sounds like you might need to add: `AddHandler cgi-script .cgi` [download] to your configuration file. -Blake	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Apache reads scripts as html, not cgi by Maestro_007 (Hermit) on Jul 04, 2001 at 09:59 UTC
First of all, you need to post some code for anyone to get an idea of what the problem may be. Second, there are several things you need to look for (oversimplified, but they should work): A shebang line at the top of the .cgi script, which on Win32 versions, looks something like this: `#!C:\perl\bin\perl5.6.1.exe` In most cases, Apache will interpret /(forward slash, UNIX-style) symbols as \(backslash, Win32-style) for Win32, but I've found that this is not the case for the shebang line. Make sure you are sending the proper `<FORM ACTION="script.cgi" METHOD="">` (assuming you're passing from another HTML document) through to the script in the request header. The `METHOD` needs to be a `GET` or `POST` request in order to work. Nearly any web page will have an example of a `FORM` tag. Heck, hit View Source now and do a search. I'll bet it's there somewhere. The `AddHandler` Directive recommended by blakem is also a good one for testing, but I've heard arguments against keeping this handler in place permanently. It came up in O'Reilly's CGI Programming With Perl, 2nd Ed., pp. 14-15. This directive allows any .cgi script which is accessible from the server to be run as a script. If a Bad Guy sees that scripts are run that are not in the /cgi-bin/ directory, he may try to look for a file called "script.bak", or "script.cgi~", which would be left behind by lots of text editors. He could then view the source code and exploit it. Maybe it's not a very likely scenario, but it's something to think about if you use CodeWright, Visual Studio, or even emacs! I would leave this handler in place just long enough to test the scripts. If none of these helps at all, you'll need to post some code and snippets of your httpd.conf files. Good luck! MM	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Apache reads scripts as html, not cgi by Tuna (Friar) on Jul 04, 2001 at 05:28 UTC
I know you said that you added your alias, but, on my Linux box, there is a file, "test-cgi", that one can use to see if Apache is properly configured to exec cgi scripts (assuming perms are in order). Do you have anything like that on your machine?	[reply]
Re: Apache reads scripts as html, not cgi by RatArsed (Monk) on Jul 05, 2001 at 16:42 UTC
Any particular version of Apache? Have you got an AddHandler line? does you #! point at the installation of perl? -- RatArsed	[reply]