What are CGI scripts?
CGI scripts are used to process information on your website. Think of scripts as mini-programs that run on the server to accomplish tasks. Website elements such as hit-counters, guestbooks, web forms, or other interactive features you place on your site must not only have HTML code, but also a script that works behind the scenes to process the information.

What types of scripts does Hostboy support?
Hostboy supports Perl and PHP scripts. Other languages such as C, require the script to be compiled on a system (i.e. your computer) running the same version of Unix as the server before they will function. So unless you have access to a current BSDi or Linux server, you will most likely be limited to Perl scripts for your account.

Do I need to upload my own scripts?
For your convenience, we have loaded a fmail.pl sctript and have additional scripts available for upload.

What mode should in upload Perl in?
When uploading Perl scripts to your account make sure that you do so in ASCII mode and not Binary mode.

What permissions do I need?
The proper permissions for your Perl scripts are:
755 or rwx-rx-rx

How do I set permissions?
See File Permissions...

How do I test for errors?
Hostboy can test your Perl Scripts and validate the funtionality. Submit your requests via the support desk.

How do I diagnose errors?
Many errors in Perl CGI scripts can easily be diagnosed by adding the following to the top of the program:
use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);
This will cause fatal error messages your script generates to be sent to directly to your Web browser.

What is the path to Perl?
/usr/bin/perl

Which version of Perl does Hostboy support?
5.004.04

What path do I use to send mail?
/usr/sbin/sendmail

What does it mean when I get the message "Internal Service Error?
This message appears when the server detects a CGI script is not functioning correctly. Typical causes are that the file is not executable, there is a malformed header, or it is has an incorrect path reference when using a Server Side Include.

• Check to confirm that you have the correct path to Perl listed in the script, and that the HTML code of the page properly refers to the script.
• Check that you uploaded the scrip under ASCII-and not binary-mode. The Control Panel has a tool that will remove the 'Control-M' characters from any script uploaded in 'Binary' mode.