`
`
`
`W3C httpd CGI/1.1 Script Support
`
`Server scripts are used to handle searches, clickable images and forms, and to produce synthesized
`documents on the fly. See calendar and finger gateway for examples.
`
`In This Section...
`
`Using Exec rule to allow scripts
`CGI Interface Script Input
`General Things to Remember
`CGI Interface Script Output
`NPHScripts No Parsing of Headers
`Setting up a search script
`
` Important Note!
`
`W3C httpd versions 2.15 and newer have two script interfaces:
`
`The original, very easytouse, interface, that was introduced in version 2.13.
`The official CGI, Common Gateway Interface, which enables scripts to be shared between
`different server implementations (NCSA server, Plexus, etc).
`
`Use of CGI instead of the old interface is strongly encouraged.
`
`IMPORTANT: If you have, or wish to write, scripts that use the old interface, your script name has to
`end in .pp suffix (comes from "PreParsed"). URLs referring to these scripts should not contain this
`suffix. This is to make it easier to later upgrade to CGI scripts, so you only need to change the script
`name in the file system, and not the documents pointing to it. If you absolutely want to use the old
`interface (which is nice for quick hacks that don't need to be portable), see the doc.
`
`Setting Up httpd To Call Scripts
`
`The server knows that a request is actually a script request by looking at the beginning of the URL
`pathname. You can specify these special strings in the configuration file (/etc/httpd.conf) by Exec
`rules:
`
` Exec /url‐prefix/* /physical‐path/*
`Where /urlprefix/ is the special string that signifies a script request, and /physicalpath/ is the absolute
`filesystem pathname of the directory that contains your scripts.
`
`AHBLT-2009.001
`
`
`
`Example
`
` Exec /htbin/* /usr/etc/cgi‐bin/*
`makes URL paths starting with /htbin to be mapped to scripts in directory /usr/etc/cgi‐bin. I.e.
`requesting
`
` /htbin/myscript
`causes a call to script
`
` /usr/etc/cgi‐bin/myscript
`Historical Note
`
`In httpd versions before 2.15 there was an HTBin directive:
`
` HTBin /physical‐path
`which is now obsolite, but understood by the server to mean
`
` Exec /htbin/* /physical‐path/*
`Use of Exec rule instead is recommended for its generality.
`
`Information Passed to CGI Scripts
`
`CGI scripts get their input mainly from environment variables and standard input (when using POST
`method). Search scripts get keywords also as command line arguments.
`
`Most important environment variables are:
`
`QUERY_STRING
`The query part of URL, that is, everything that follows the question mark. This string is URL
`encoded, meaning that special characters like spaces and newlines are encoded into their hex
`notation (%xx), and characters like + = & have a special meaning. The contents of this variable can
`be easily parsed using the cgiparse program.
`
`PATH_INFO
`Extra path information given after the script name, for example with Exec rule:
`
` Exec /htbin/* /usr/etc/cgi‐bin/*
`a URL with path
`
` /htbin/myscript/extra/pathinfo
`will execute the script /usr/etc/cgibin/myscript with PATH_INFO environment variable set to
`/extra/pathinfo.
`
`PATH_TRANSLATED
`Extra pathinfo translated through the rule system. (This doesn't always make sense.)
`
`See also NCSA's primer to writing CGI scripts.
`
`AHBLT-2009.002
`
`
`
`General Things to Remember in Scripts
`
`Make sure that
`
`the script file has execute permission set, e.g.
`
` chmod 755 your_script
`the shell to execute the script is specified in the first line of the script, e.g.:
`
` #!/bin/sh
`All scripts are executed from the ServerRoot.
`
`Results From Scripts
`
`Scripts return their results either outputting a document to their standard output, or by outputting the
`location of the result document (either a full URL or a local virtual path).
`
`Outputting a Document
`
`Script result must begin with a Content‐Type: line giving the document content type, followed by an
`empty line. The actual document follows the empty line. Example:
`
` Content‐Type: text/html
`
` <HEAD>
` <TITLE>Script test></TITLE>
` </HEAD>
` <BODY>
` <H1>My First Virtual Document</H1>
` ....
` </BODY>
`For VMS the script result is generated a bit differently. Here are two examples:
`
`$ write sys$output "Content‐Type: text/html"
`$ write sys$output ""
`$ write sys$output "<HEAD>"
`$ write sys$output "<TITLE>Script test</TITLE>"
`$ write sys$output "</HEAD>"
`$ write sys$output "<BODY>"
`$ write sys$output "<H1>My First Virtual Document</H1>"
`$ write sys$output "<b>This is a test.</b>"
`$ write sys$output "</BODY>"
`$ exit
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`and
`
` $ write sys$output "Content‐Type: text/html"
` $ write sys$output ""
` $ write sys$output "<HEAD>"
`
`AHBLT-2009.003
`
`
`
` $ write sys$output "<TITLE>Script test</TITLE>"
` $ write sys$output "</HEAD>"
` $ write sys$output "<BODY>"
` $ write sys$output "<H1>My First Virtual Document</H1>"
` $ write sys$output "<b>This is a test.</b>"
` $ write sys$output "<ISINDEX>"
` $ write sys$output "<pre>"
` $ show symbol p1
` $ write sys$output ""
` $ show user 'p1
` $ write sys$output "</pre>"
` $ write sys$output "</BODY>"
` $ exit
`
`Giving Document Location
`
`If the script wants to return an existing document (local or remote), it can give a Location: header
`followed by an empty line: Example:
`
` Location: http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/
`
`This causes the server to send a redirection to client, which then retrieves that document. If Location
`starts with a slash (is not a full URL), it is taken to be a virtual path for a document on the same machine,
`and server passes this string right away through the rule system and serves that document as if it had been
`requested in the first place. In this case clients don't do the redirection, but the server does it "on the fly".
`
`Example:
`
` Location: /hypertext/WWW/
`Understand, that this is a virtual path, so after translations it might be, for example, /Public/Web/.
`
`Important: Only full URLs in Location field can contain the #label part of URL, because that is meant
`only for the clientside, and the server cannot possibly handle it in any way.
`
`NPHScripts (NoParseHeaders)
`
`Script wishing to output the entire HTTP reply (including status line and all response headers) should be
`named to begin with nph‐ prefix. This makes httpd connect script's output stream directly to requesting
`client reducing the overhead of server needlessly parsing the response headers.
`
`Example Of NPHScript Output
`
` HTTP/1.0 200 Script results follow
` Server: MyScript/1.0 via CERN/3.0
` Content‐Type: text/html
`
` <HEAD>
` <TITLE>Just testing...</TITLE>
` </HEAD>
` <BODY>
` <H1>Output From NPH‐Script</H1>
`
`AHBLT-2009.004
`
`
`
` Yep, seems to work.
` </BODY>
`
`Setting Up A Search Script
`
`There is a special Search directive in the configuration file givin the absolute pathname of the script
`performing the search:
`
` Search /absolute/path/search
`Every time a document is searched, this script is called with
`
`Command line
`containing the search keywords decoded, one in each of argv[1], argv[2], ...
`QUERY_STRING
`containing the query string encoded, as it came in the URL after the question mark.
`PATH_INFO
`Virtual path of the document that the search was issued from.
`PATH_TRANSLATED
`Absolute filesystem path of the document.
`
`Search results are output in the usual way:
`
` Content‐Type: text/html
`
` ...generated document...
`
`httpd@w3.org, July 1995
`
`AHBLT-2009.005
`
`
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