Setting up a Guestbook

[Tau]

I'm trying to set up a guestbook on my site. I'm copying the same files that I set up on the aol-files.com guestbook. I'm not too knowledgable about CGI though, so its not working out too well. Here is what I have set up:

 

 

When I login with ws_ftp i go to the main folder it has the folders

 

.session

logs

web

 

in web, i have my index.html, etc.

so i made two folders in there.

 

guestbook - which has all the guestbook files and

cgi-bin - i just stuck my guestbook.pl in there

 

in the guestbook folder, i have my main guestbook file, that includes the line

 

...action="../cgi-bin/guestbook.pl" method="POST"

 

which should take it to the guestbook.pl, right? Guess not, because it says the file isnt found.

 

other issues... chmod? what do i chmod and why?

 

also, in the guestbook.pl file, what do i change all these to and what do they mean?

 

# Absolute path to the cgi-lib library.

$cgilib = "www.~.com/web/cgi-bin/cgi-lib.pl";

 

# This user will be directed to this page after the post is sent.

$thanks = "http://www.~.com/guestbook/index.html";

 

# $mailprog is the path to the mail program on your server.

$mailprog = "/bin/mail";

 

# Path to the file that will be placed at the top of the guestbook.

$top = "www.~.com/web/guestbook/gb-top.html";

 

# Path to the file that will be placed at the bottom of the guestbook.

$bottom = "www.~.com/web/guestbook/gb-bottom.html";

 

# Absolute path to the HTML file in which the guestbook will be

# created.

$main_book = "www.~.com/web/guestbook/index.html";

 

# Absolute path to the database file in which the guestbook entries

# will reside.

$main_db = "www.~.com/web/guestbook/gb.db";

 

i would greatly appreciate help from anyone knowledgable in this area.

 

thanks,

matt

[blike]

what errors are you getting?

[Tau]

When I try to submit something using the form it takes me to a page that says:

 

Not Found

The requested URL /cgi-bin/guestbook.pl was not found on this server.

[blike]

change "../cgi-bin/guestbook.pl" method="POST" to the full url...see what happens:

 

http://www.~.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.pl

[Tau]

Same error message:

 

Not Found

The requested URL /cgi-bin/guestbook.pl was not found on this server.

[blike]

ok, when you visit the scripts url in your browser, does it find it?

[Tau]

Nope. As far as anything is concerned, it doesnt exist. I can see via an FTP Browser though.

[blike]

thats very wierd. is this your own server, or do you rent space?

 

If its your own server something likely isn't set up right.

 

can you find ANY pages on your site? not just the cgi script..

[Tau]

I've been testing different files in that same cgi-bin folder and none of them are recognized. Everything else on the site works fine, but even if i upload pictures into the cgi-bin directory, it doesnt recognize any of them.

 

I was thinking maybe the chmod should be different, so I changed it all to 777. That didnt work, so I just deleted the folder and remade it, same problem. What the hell is going on?

[blike]

try chmod 755, some servers are picky about that

[blike]

I'm hitting the sack, I'll be on tomorrow morning/afternoon if you want to AIM me: blikeagain.

[Tau]

Niet, no no no.

 

No difference. On another note, I made a

 

cgo-bin directory, and that worked fine. The host must have some sort of restrictions on a folder with the name of cgi-bin. Is it possible that they dont support it?

[Tau]

Ok, progress. I went to the host's web site and it says on there that I can just place the CGI files in any directory. So I just stuck it all in the guestbook folder, along with a cgi file mentioned in the guestbook.pl file called cgi-lib.pl. I updated that on the index.html, blah blah, chmod 755 the guestbook.pl file and now it gives me this error:

 

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@~.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

 

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

 

 

So I am pretty sure something is misconfigured in the section that has all the paths because I have absolutely no idea how to configure it. Any idea blike? Btw, thanks for helping.

[Tau]

I got it, hot damn. I messed around with different paths, etc and it finally worked. Thanks man.

[Dudde]

hey man, sorry I'm usually on earlier than this I would've been happy to help ya

 

congrats on getting it working though:D

[Tau]

Thanks anyway Dudde