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CGI
Applications
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Index Overview
CGI stands for "Common
Gateway Interface,". What this means is that they are programs that are
commonly run on a server when a web browser invokes them from a web page.
This means that the web browser does not need to have any fancy viewers or
plugins for the CGI program to run.
The CGI Scripts provided for you are basically
self-contained. There is little, if anything, that needs to be done to
them to make them operate. The complicated part for most users
trying to add cgi scripts is file paths and permissions. Even
experienced programmers and webmasters struggle at times to properly
configure cgi programs. If you are a Novice User with limited knowledge in
this area, it is strongly recommended that you first become highly
proficient with HTML and web page creation before attempting to do this
yourself.
Adding CGI
Scripts
We provide many CGI scripts
with your account which you will find in a directory called
cgi-bin. We do not provide free support for CGI scripts which
we do not install on your server, so if you wish to add new CGI scripts
you may want to do a bit of research on them first unless you are familiar
with them already. Adding new scripts requires a more advanced knowledge
of programming terms and skills and is not generally recommended for
Novice Users.
If you are an experienced user, (or a novice
who myopically decides to install your own scripts) you can access more
technical cgi information in the Advanced User
section of this manual.
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CGI Script
Resources
There are many good resources for
CGI scripts found on the web. The scripts at Matt's Script Archive found
at http://www.worldwidemart.com/scripts/ are very good. Many of our
scripts come from there. Another excellent resource is The CGI Resource
Index found at http://www.cgi-perl.com/ Unless you are an
expert on the subject, you should look for scripts that are very well
documented and come with step-by-step instructions. You may contact
us for help or installation.
Where to Put CGI-bin Scripts
Put your
cgi-bin scripts in the www subdirectory named
"cgi-bin".
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Quick
Guidelines For Using SSI's
No! We are not
talking about a Social Security Income check from uncle Sam! SSI
stands for Server Side Include... and it means that you can insert the
contents of another web page, program or file into the web page that adds
the Server Side Include.
A couple of important points you need to follow for SSI to work on
your domain.
1. The web page that
adds the SSI instruction to include another page or program MUST end
with .shtml or .sht rather than .html or .htm.
2. The URL to the page you want to insert must be relative
to the current web page rather than a full URL.
The SSI feature on your domain is limited to what is
known as a "exec cgi command". This simply means that you can
insert into any page the ability to execute any cgi program. The format
for a Server Side Include is:
<!--#exec
cgi="/cgi-bin/THE-PROGRAM-NAME-HERE.cgi"-->
One quick observation... do you notice how this SSI
instruction uses a *relative* URL (/cgi-bin/....) instead of a FULL URL?
This is very important to keep in mind when using SSI.
For example, let's say we want to include a counter
program (that has the name, counter.cgi) on our home page, called
normally index.html. Remember! Because we want to add a SSI
instruction in our home page, it must end with .shtml or .sht. In this
case, we would name it index.shtml.
The counter program is named counter.cgi, and
like all cgi programs, this program is found in the cgi-bin directory of
your domain.
So the SSI instruction to include on your web page,
where you want the counter to be displayed is:
<!--#exec
cgi="/cgi-bin/counter.cgi"-->
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Permission Settings for Provided Scripts
All of the cgi scripts provided as part of your domain have been
setup and configured properly. As mentioned earlier, one of the most
difficult tasks of dealing with CGI programs is correct settings of file
permissions. Listed below are the default permission settings for
the installed CGI programs.
|
wwwboard Permission |
| bbs dir |
chmod 755 |
| bbs/messages |
chmod 755 |
| bbs/index.sht |
chmod 666 |
| bbs/data |
chmod 666 |
| cgi-bin/wwwboard.pl |
chmod 755 |
|
Guestbook Permission |
| Guestbook dir |
chmod 755 |
| Guestbook/guestbook.cgi |
chmod 755 |
| Guestbook/guestbook.setup |
chmod 666 |
| Guestbook/guestbook.html |
chmod 666 |
|
Free for
all Links Permission |
| links dir |
chmod 755 |
| links/links.htm |
chmod 666 |
| cgi-bin/links.pl |
chmod 755 |
|
Graphic Counter Permission |
| counter dir |
chmod 775 |
| counter/logs |
chmod 777 |
| counter/ all other files |
chmod 666 |
| cgi-bin/counter |
chmod 755 |
|
Cgi-bin always chmod 755 all scripts chmod 755 in main
bin |
| cgi-bin/counters (text counter) |
chmod 755 |
|
Random
Text |
| random dir |
chmod 775 |
| random/random.txt |
chmod 666 |
|
Password Admin |
| password dir |
chmod 755 |
| All password files |
chmod 666 |
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Go To Top of Page Cgiwrap--Secure Server CGI Wrapper
Your domain includes secure server access, allowing you to collect
customer information in a secure fashion. Since you might also want
to run a cgi program in secure mode, we make available Cgiwrap - a system
that allows safe, secure use of cgi programs. We have created a sort short
cut for this as well.
When you want to use a cgi script or program in secure
mode, you
must change the URL to follow this
format:
https://vault.safe-ssl.net/cgi-domain/script.cgi
Machine - that is the machine name that is hosting your
domain.
cgi-domain - replace the word
domain with your domain name.
script.cgi - use the name of the cgi script located in
your cgi-bin directory.
For nph-style scripts,
use nph-cgiwrap or nph-cgiwrapd instead.
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Preconfigured
CGI-bin Scripts We Provide
This section contains all of the information you need to
create your web pages for use with the CGI scripts we provide for you as
part of your account. These scripts are recommended for users with Advanced knowledge and experience with HTML and web
page creation.
NOTE: Due to the width restrictions of this page some code
strings appear broken. Do NOT duplicate the breaks. Enter code
strings in one continual line.
FormMail.
This script is one from
Matt's Script Archive which we have installed and preconfigured
for your domain. FormMail is a generic www form to e-mail gateway,
which will parse the results of any form and send them to the specified
user. This script has many formatting and functional options, most of
which can be specified through the form. This means you don’t need any
programming knowledge, nor do you need multiple scripts for multiple
forms. This also makes FormMail the perfect system wide solution for
allowing users form-based user feedback capabilities without the risks
of allowing freedom of CGI access.
Note: If you wish to use FormMail on a secure server
please see the special
instructions here.
There is only one form field that you must have in your
form, for FormMail to work correctly. This is the recipient
field. Other hidden configuration fields can also be used to enhance the
operation of FormMail on your site.
The action of your form needs to point towards this
script, and the method must be POST in capital letters. Here's an
example of the form fields to put in your form:
<FORM METHOD=POST
ACTION="http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi">
<input type=hidden name="recipient"
value="whoever@yourdomain.com">
<input type=hidden name="subject"
value="Order">
<input type=hidden
name="return_link_url" value="http://yourdomain.com/">
<input type=hidden name="return_link_title"
value="Back to Main Page">
The following are descriptions and the proper
syntax for fields you can use with FormMail.
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Recipient Field
Description:. This form field allows you to specify to
whom your form results will be mailed Most likely you will want to
configure this option as a hidden form field with a value equal to that
of your email address.
Syntax: <input
type=hidden name="recipient" value="email@yourdomain.com">
Subject Field
Description: The subject field will allow you to specify
the subject that you wish to appear in the email that is sent to you
after the form has been filled out. If you do not have this option
turned on, then the script will default to a message subject: "WWW Form
Submission".
Syntax: If you wish to
choose what the subject is:
<input
type=hidden name="subject" value="Your Subject">
To allow the user to choose a subject:
<input type=text name="subject">
Email Field
Description: This form field will allow the user to
specify their return email address. If you want to be able to return
e-mail to your user, it is strongly suggested that you include this
form. This will be put into
the From: field of
the message you receive. If you want to require an email address with
valid syntax, add this field name to the 'required' field.
Syntax: <input type=text
name="email">
Realname Field
Description: The realname form field will allow the
user to input their real name. This field is useful for identification
purposes and will also be put into the From: line of your message
header.
Syntax: <input type=text
name="realname">
Redirect Field
Description: If you wish to redirect the user to a
different URL, rather than having them see the default response to the
fill-out form, you can use this hidden variable to send them to a
pre-made HTML page.
Syntax:
To choose the URL they will end up at:
<input type=hidden name="redirect"
value="http://yourdomain.com/to/file.html">
To allow them to specify a URL they wish to travel to once
the form is filled out:
<input
type=text name="redirect">
Required Field
Description: You can require certain fields in your
form to be filled in before the user can successfully submit the form.
Simply place all field names that you want to be mandatory into this
field, separated by commas. If the required fields are not filled in,
the user will be notified of what they need to fill in, and a link back
to the form they just submitted will be provided.
To use a customized error page, see
'missing_fields_redirect'
Syntax: If you want to require that they fill in
the email and phone fields in your form, so that you can reach them once
you have received the mail, use the syntax like:
<input type=hidden name="required"
value="email,phone">
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Env_report Field
Description:
Allows you to have Environment variables included in the email
message you receive after a user has filled out your form. Useful if you
wish to know what browser they were using, what domain they were coming
from or any other attributes associated with environment variables. The
following is a short list of valid environment variables that might be
useful:
REMOTE_HOST - Sends the hostname
making the request.
REMOTE_ADDR - Sends
the IP address of the remote host.
HTTP_USER_AGENT - The browser the client is using.
(Note: In our case, both REMOTE_HOST and
REMOTE_ADDR are the same, since our servers don't do the reverse DNS
lookup needed to generate the true REMOTE_HOST string).
Syntax: If you wanted to find all the above variables,
you would put the following into your form:
<input type=hidden name="env_report"
value="REMOTE_HOST,REMOTE_ADDR,HTTP_USER_AGENT">
Sort Field
Description: This field allows you to choose the order
you would like your variables to appear in the email form that FormMail
generates. You can choose to have the field sorted alphabetically or
specify a set order in which you want the fields to appear in your email
message. By leaving this field out, the order will simply default
to the order in which the browsers send the information to the
script (which is usually the exact same order as they appeared in the
form). When sorting by a set order of fields, you should include the
phrase "order:" as the first part of your value for the sort field, and
then follow that with the field names you want to be listed in the email
message separated by commas.
Syntax:
To sort alphabetically:
<input
type=hidden name="sort" value="alphabetic">
To sort by a set field order:
<input type=hidden name="sort"
value="order:name1,name2,etc...">
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Print_config Field
Description:
print_config allows you to specify which of the config variables you
would like to have printed in your e-mail message. By default, no config
fields are printed to your email. This is because the important form
fields, like email, subject, etc. are included in the header of the
message. However some users have asked for this option so they can have
these fields printed in the body of the message. The config fields that
you wish to have printed should be in the value attribute of your input
tag separated by commas.
Syntax: If you
want to print the email and subject fields in the body of your message,
you would place the following form tag:
<input type=hidden name="print config" value="email,
subject">
Print_blank_fields Field
Description: print_blank_fields allows you to
request that all form fields are printed in the return HTML, regardless
of whether or not they were filled in. FormMail defaults to turning this
off, so that unused form fields aren't emailed.
Syntax: <input type=hidden name="print_blank_fields"
value="1">
Title Field
Description: This form field allows you to specify the
title and header that will appear on the resulting page if you do not
specify a redirect URL.
Syntax: If you
wanted a title of 'Feedback Form Results':
<input type=hidden name="title" value="Feedback Form
Results">
Return_link_url Field
Description: This field allows you to specify a URL that
will appear, as return_link_title, on the following report page. This
field will not be used if you have the redirect field set, but it is
useful if you allow the user to receive the report on the following
page, but want to offer them a way to get back to your main page.
Syntax:
<input type=hidden
name="return_link_url"value="http://
yourdomain.com/index.htm">
Return_link_title
Description: This is the title that will be used to link
the user back to the page you specify with return_link_url. The two
fields will be shown on the resulting form page as:
Back to Main Page
Syntax:
<input type=hidden name="return_link_title" value="Back to Main
Page">
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Cgiemail
Cgiemail is another form
processing script, totally different than FormMail. It is a program
written in the C language that takes the contents of fill-in boxes on a
form and emails them to a specified location. In addition to the form
specification in the .html file, a mail specification in a .txt file is
required to format the resulting email message.
We provide the cgiemail in the cgi-bin directory of
your server. You need to have an action in your order.htm file to call
it. It should look like this:
<form
method=post
action="http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/cgiemail/order.txt">
Details are provided below. While there are a number of
subsections below this one, they all work together and are meant to be
read from start to finish.
order.htm
Look for a file in your www
directory called order.htm. This is our example form we put on your
site that shows how a form should be configured to work with Cgiemail.
Look at it in a browser, and download it to your hard drive using FTP
so you can see how it works. If you've never dealt with HTML forms
before, don't worry, they're easy to create and
understand.
The form prompts the user for data which is sent to
the server as simple key-value pairs. Each <input>
tag
specifies a record. The key is
given by the name attribute, and the value is given by the value
attribute. The type attribute tells the browser what kind of data to
expect. Now, try looking at the example.
Please note that the hidden items are used to
transmit critical info to Cgiemail. They provide the location of the
success file, the name of the person the results should be sent to,
and the subject of the form. When making your own forms, you may want
to change the email address in the "required-to" field, and
likely the subject in the "subject" field. The first item tells
Cgiemail what to show the user after successfully completing the form.
You can, but don't need to customize
this.
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After that come the items that are actually presented to the
user. You'll want to use type=text input items with cgiemail:
it's a simple tool. The size=60 tells the browser how big to
make the box. The name=something is required in each input tag,
otherwise the browser wouldn't know how to send the data to the
server. The value=" " attribute is correct in most cases,
unless you want a default value in the form.
Note that if a field begins with required-,
cgiemail will require that the user enter a value for this field. This
is particularly useful if you want to require a user to submit their
email address.
When the user presses the Submit button, the
data goes to our machine where cgiemail starts doing something with
it. What is does is controlled by the order.txt file discussed
below.
By the way, you can name your HTML form
anything you want to.
order.txt
Now that we
have all this data, what do we do with it? Mail it, of course! But for
flexibility, cgiemail requires that you create a mail.txt file
to show it what to send. (If you didn't want flexibility you'd use a
mailto link.) The program will read this file, perform substitutions,
and pass it to the mail system.
Make sure that you upload mail.txt in
ASCII mode. Failure to upload mail.txt in ASCII mode
will generate the message:
"Server
Error: The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration
and was unable to complete your request."
There is already an example order.txt document in the forms
directory in your www directory.
By the way, there's nothing magical about the
name order.txt. Feel free to call it mail1.txt or form1.mail, or
whatever suits you, as long as the form has the correct name for what
you uploaded.
Note that the first several lines are mail
headers. You probably shouldn't change that part, or the corresponding
parts in your form. In particular, there must be a To: header
or the mail won't go anywhere!
What cgiemail does is simply replace every
string that looks like [key] with the value the user typed into
the field with name=key. That's all. You can lay out your form
as is best for your users, but lay out your mail.txt as is best for
you to read. You can even insert gobs of text to help format the
output. Only the [key] parts will be replaced by
cgiemail.
Cgiemail does not report environmental
variables like FormMail will, but other than that, it is an excellent
program, allowing you more flexibility in the way you want your data
returned by the form.
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Secure Server Order Forms
Normally, any text (such as your credit card number) sent from
your browser to the web server is sent as plain text. This means that a
hacker could potentially intercept (however unlikely) the information
sent from your browser and read it. However, by using the secure server,
the information is encrypted before it is sent from your browser. It
would be practically impossible for anyone to decrypt it without knowing
the key. Please use the secure server only when necessary, as when
requesting sensitive information from your visitors.
The domains hosted by us are housed on many different
computers, each of which have a different machine name. To find out what
machine name to use for your secure order access calls, check the faq
file of your domain at:
http://www.yourdomain.com/faq.html
Each server has its own safe-order site, and although
you will be putting your form on your own domain, it must be called
through the safe-order server in order for the form to be secure.
To do this, create your form as usual and put it
somewhere in your www directory. You can put your form anywhere you want
to, but for this example, let's assume the normal URL for your form can
be accessed from a browser with this URL:
http://www.yourdomain.com/signup/secureform.html
To call the form through the secure-order server, you
need to use the following URL to access your pages via the secure server
(even though your form resides on your own domain space):
https://vault.safe-ssl.net/yourdomain/signup/secureform.html.
That would be the URL you would put as an <HREF>
to link to your form from whatever page you have your visitors link
from. Don't forget the "s" in "https."
To call scripts in your cgi-bin via the secure server
you should use a URL like this:
https://vault.safe-ssl.net/cgi-yourdomain/your-cgi.cgi
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Special instructions for using FormMail.cgi with the Secure
Server
If you are using formmail.cgi
through the secure server, you can still place your form anywhere on
your webspace you want to, but you MUST use the following URL as
the ACTION of your form:
https://vault.safe-ssl.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi
Here's an example of how the first parts of your
form might look:
<FORM METHOD=POST
ACTION="https://vault.safe-ssl.net/cgi-bin/formmail.cgi">
<input type=hidden name="recipient"
value="whoever@yourdomain.com">
<input type=hidden name="subject"
value="Order">
<input type=hidden
name="return_link_url" value="http://yourdomain.com/">
<input type=hidden name="return_link_title"
value="Back to Main Page">
It is still important that you call your order page
through a secure URL in order for it to work properly. You must
use:
https://vault.safe-ssl.net/yourdomain/order.htm.
If you call formmail.cgi through the secure server,
you must also call the order form through the secure server. Otherwise,
a "bad referrer" message will result.
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Guestbook
Guestbook allows you to
set up your own comments page. From there, visitors can add entries to
your Guestbook and they will be displayed with the most recent at the
top and scrolling down, or vice versa. Other options include the ability
to limit HTML in the entry, link to e-mail address with mailto tag, use
a log to log entries, redirect to a different page after signing,
emailing whenever a new entry is added, and much more.
Guestbook is already set up for use on your
server. You can simply use the following URL to access it:
http://yourdomain.com/Guestbook/guestbook.html
If you want to change any of the configuration
options, locate the guestbook.cgi file in your Guestbook directory
(inside your www directory). Download it to your hard drive in ASCII
mode, and save it somewhere safe. Create a copy of the file and give it
the same name, then edit the options as specified below. Keep your
backup of the original guestbook.cgi in case you run into
problems.
Option 1: $mail
This
option will allow you to be notified via an E-mail address when a new
entry arrives in your Guestbook. The entry will be mailed to you as a
notification. If you should choose to turn this variable on you will
need to fill in the 2 variables that go along with it:
$recipient - Your email address, so that the mailing program
will know who to mail the entry to.
$mailprog - The location of your sendmail program on
your host machine.
Option 2: $uselog
This will allow you the ability to use the short log feature.
It is already turned on so you will have to change it to 0 if you do
not wish to use it. It has been implemented since there are many
people who feel no need to have a log when people are making entries
to a file anyway. Keep in mind that it will show errors which is one
nice aspect about it.
Option 3: $linkmail
Turning this option on will make the address links in your
guestbook become hyperlinked. So instead of simply having
name@some.host) it will put
(<ahref="mailto:name@some.host">name@somehost</a>
so that anyone can simply click on the address to email
them.
Option 4: $separator
This allows you to choose whether you want guestbook entries
to be separated by a Paragraph Separator <p>, or a Horizontal
Rule <hr>. By changing the 0 in the script to a 1, you will turn
on the <hr> separator and turn off the <p> separator. The
0 option will do the reverse of that; turn on the <p> and turn
off the <hr>.
Option 5: $redirection
By choosing 1 you will enable auto redirection and 0 will
return a page to the user telling them their entry has been received
and click here to get back to the Guestbook.
Option 6: $entry_order
Set this option to 0 and the newest entries will be added
below the rest of the entries. Keep this option at 1 and the
Guestbook will add the newest entries at the top.
Option 7: $remote_mail
Many users of the Guestbook have requested that a form letter
be automatically sent to the remote user when they fill in the
Guestbook. Turning this option on will tell the script to
automatically mail any user who leaves an email address. You can
specify the contents of the mail message by editing the section of the
script that sends mail to the remote user. By default it sends a
message that says, "Thank you for adding to my Guestbook." and then
shows them their entry. If you should choose to turn this variable on,
you will need to fill in the 2 variables that go along with it:
$recipient - Your email address so that the mailing program
will know who to mail the entry to.
$mailprog - The location of your sendmail program on
your host machine.
Option 8: $allow_html
This option
allows you to turn on or off the use of HTML tags by users of your
guestbook. Setting this variable to 1 allows users
to embed html tags such as <b> or <H1> or <a href="
"></a> into your html document. Setting this variable to
0 will not allow them to use any html syntax in their comments
or any other field. You can still link to their comments or any other
field. You can still link to their email address by turning
$link_mail to 1.
There is also the ability for users to add their own
URL and then their name is referenced to their URL in the
guestbook.html file. This helps to eliminate the need for
allow_html to be turned on, and lets users point you to a spot
that will tell you more about them. Several users of the guestbook
script have asked for this option. If you wish to disable the option,
simply delete the following line from your addguest.html file:
URL: <input type=text name=url
size=50><br>
guestbook.html
This
is the file that you will link to that will contain the Guestbook
Entries. You may want to edit the title and heading spaces and
customize the look any way you desire. Do not delete the line
<!--begin--> from this guestbook, or else the script will have
no way of knowing where to begin the editing. The <!--begin-->
line is the only necessary line in your guestbook.html file, but the
link to the addguest.html file is also a good idea.
:-)
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Free-For-All Links Page
Free For All
Link Page allows you to set up a web page which your users can then add
links to in specified categories. The newest links are added to the top
of each category. A running total of the number of links present, as
well as the time when the last link was added, is shown at the top of
the page. Your preconfigured Free For All Links page is already set up
on your server at
http://www.yourdomain.com/links/links.htm.
The only configuration you may want to do is to
customize the look of the links.htm page. Just leave the method and
input tags the way they are. If you decide to change the category names,
you must do so in the links.htm document, AS WELL AS the links.pl file
in your cgi-bin.
Random Text
Generator
This script is preconfigured for
your server. There is a directory in your www directory called
"random." Inside that directory is a file called random.txt. Just
download this file to your hard drive and edit it with any random text
you would like placed in an html document. Remember to keep the
%% separator between quotes. You can use any html formatting tags
you want to, including <href> tags so you can configure it as a
random link generator. You can put in as many quotes as you wish. Upload
the random.txt file to your server in the same location you found it,
remembering to upload it in ASCII or text mode.
The script uses SSI (Server Side Includes) so the
page you want to use random text on must have the .sht, .shtm, or .shtml
extension. On your page, just put this tag wherever you want the random
text to appear:
<!--#exec
cgi="/cgi-bin/randomtext.cgi"-->
That's all there is to it!
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WWW Board
WWW Board is a threaded
World Wide Web discussion forum and message board, which allows users to
post new messages, follow-up to existing ones and more. It is already
preconfigured for your server. Just go to:
http://www.yourdomain.com/bbs to post your messages
there.
There are several options you may want to configure.
First of all, the index.sht file in the bbs directory can be customized
any way you wish as long as you leave the method and input tags the way
they are.
Additionally, here are some options contained in
the wwwboard.pl script itself (located in your cgi-bin directory) which
you may want to change, depending on your needs:
$show_faq = 1;
This option
allows you to choose whether or not you want to display a link to the
FAQ on every individual message page or not. It defaults to 1 and the
link will be put in at the top of the message along with links to
Followups, Post Followup and Back to $title. Setting this to 0 will
turn it off, and keeping it at 1 will keep the link. You need to
create a faq.html file and put it inside the bbs directory. The FAQ
can contain any information you want to give your visitors about how
the board works, your organization, types of postings that will be
allowed, etc.
$allow_html = 1;
This option lets you choose whether or not you want to allow
HTML mark-up in your posts. If you do not want to allow it, then
everything that a user submits that has <>'s around it will be
cut out of the message. Setting this option to 1 will allow HTML in
the posts and you can turn this option off by setting it to 0.
$quote_text = 1;
By keeping this option set to 1, the previous message will be
quoted in the followup text input box. The quoted text will have a ':'
placed in front of it so you can distinguish what had been said in the
previous posts from what the current poster is trying to get across.
Setting this option to 0 will leave the followup text box empty for
the new poster.
$subject_line = 0;
There are three options for the way that you can display
the subject line for the user posting a followup. Leaving
this option at 0 which is the default value,
will put the previous subject line into the followup form and allow
users to edit the subject however they like. Setting this option to 1,
however, will quote the subject, but simply display it to the user,
not allowing him or her to edit the subject line. The third and final
option can be achieved by setting the $subject_line variable to
2. If it is set to 2, the subject will not be quoted and instead the
user will be prompted with an empty subject block in their followup
subject line.
$use_time = 1;
This option allows you to choose whether or not you want to
use the hour:minute:second time with the day/month/year time on the
main page. Day/Month/Year will automatically be placed on the main
wwwboard.html page when a new entry is added, but if you leave
this variable at 1, the hour:minute:second time will also be put
there. This is very useful for message boards that get a lot of posts,
but if you would like to save space on your main page, you can set
this to 0, causing the hour:minute:second display not to be
added.
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Search.cgi
Search will look
at all your html pages for words you enter, and return all pages on a
list with links. This program is completely configured and ready to run,
but for Search.cgi to return a response, it need to be activated. This
is easily done by logging in via telnet and at the prompt after login
type the following command:
chmod +r
/www/yourdomain
Now you can access
search.cgi with the following URL:
http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi.
There is a configuration file called search_define.pl
which accompanies search.cgi and sets up the variables for it. You can
customize which files you wish to exclude from searches, and also the
cosmetics of the search and result. pages.
Single Page
Shopping Cart (on qualifying accounts only)
Lets Take A Order shop cart - allows 25 item cart to be
easily created via a web page. For instructions for use go
to
http://your-domain-here.com/lto.htm
Page
Counters
There are 3 different types
of page counters you can place on your pages. The first is a no-frills
graphical counter:
To use this one, put the following tag somewhere on your page, but
change the yourpage.htm to be the address of the actual page you are
putting this counter on. Also, don't break up the tag like we did. We
had to do that to fit it on the page. The width=5 part refers to how
many digits you want in your counter. This counter is not as reliable as
the others available.
<IMG
SRC="/cgi-bin/nph-count?
width=5&link=http://yourdomain/yourpage.htm">
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Virtual Publisher Counter (on qualifying accounts only).
Another page counter you may want to use is the
Virtual Publisher Counter (on qualifying accounts only). It is another
graphical counter, but it will give you all kinds of stats such as time
and date of visits, and domains that your visitors come
from.
To put this counter on your page, insert the following tag
somewhere... please note that the line had to be broken up to fit on
this page, but the line should not be broken on your page.
<img
src="http://yourdomain.com/cgibin/counter/counter.cgi?
fnam=testcount&viz=yes&isinv=yes&setup=/home/www/
yourdomain/cgi-bin/counter/setup.txt">
Where you see fnam=testcount, put in the
name of the page you want to put the counter on instead of the word
testcount. The viz=yes part tells the counter script whether your
counter should be invisible or not. If you want the counter to be
visible, leave it as yes. If you want it to be invisible, make it say
viz=no.
The isinv=yes part is for whether you want
the counter to be inverted or not. The default as below means that it is
inverted (as shown in the graphic above). If you wish for it to be just
a black number against a white background, make it say
isinv=no.
Another great thing about this one is that you can
access the log files for each page you have the counter on, and also
reset the count to any number you wish. To see the instruction page, go
to http://yourdomain.com/counter/ with your web
browser.
Please be aware that a count file will not be
created until a page is accessed for the first
time.
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Text-based Counter
Finally, the simplest
kind of page counter is a text-based counter. It uses SSI so the page
you are putting it on must have the .sht, .shtm, or .shtml extension. It
will look like whatever text and size attributes you give it on your
page. The tag looks like this:
<!--#exec
cgi="/cgi-yourdomain/counters/counter.cgi"-->
After you've put the counter on your page, look
at it with your browser. If you don't see the counter the first time,
hit reload. Then you should see the number 1. If you want to change the
page count, FTP to your site, and look in the counters directory in your
cgi-bin. There will be a file there with the name of whatever page you
placed this counter on. Just upload a new text file with a new number on
it, and that will be the new count on the page next time you hit reload.
Remember to upload the file in ASCII or text
format.
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