CGI execute problem. Win XP, don't have permission

[ZsN1Gman]

Hello,

I can't for the life of me get CGI scripts to run. I have my sites all listed in c:\web\siteFiles

When trying to run a script like

http://localhost/siteFiles/cgi-bin/test.cgi

I get an error message: Forbidden "You don't have permission to access /siteFiles/cgi-bin/test.cgi

I can on the other hand read .txt files in the same directory, and if I name the script .pl the browser attemps to download it.

The error log says, "Options ExecCGI is off in this directory"

The following is from my httpd.conf

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "C:/web/siteFiles/cgi-bin/"

The following <Directory &quot;C:/web/siteFiles/cgi-bin/&quot;> contains the defailt values. If I change Options to ExecCGI | +ExecCGI I get an internal server error, the error log then says, couldn't spawn child process.

I've tried everything I can see that governs CGI in the httpd. file.

I haven't had any throuble like this with with my IIS server.

If anyone has any hints I'd appreciate hearing them.

Jim

 

[cian]

Do you need to set permissions on the script/what have you set them to?


::

http://www.endamcg.com

 

[DickDastardly]

Hi Jim,

Did you ever fix this, I have the exact same problem.
File permissions first and then server error when I fill in the directory.
Cannot find an answer anywhere.

Regards
DD

 

[Newposter]

You found the problem yourself, in your error log. You need to set directory permissions in your httpd.conf file as follows, right after the ScriptAlias:

<Directory &quot;C:/web/siteFiles/cgi-bin/&quot;>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Also, make sure that the AddHandler is set:

AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl Newposter
&quot;Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.&quot;

 

[ZsN1Gman]

It's been awhile since I had this problem.. But I think the portion(s) listed below fixed it. If this doesn't help I can send you my file for comparison.

...
# OLD ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ &quot;C:/Program Files/Apache
# Group/Apache/cgi-bin/&quot;
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ &quot;/Wwwroot/[^\/]*/cgi-bin/&quot;

# &quot;C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache/cgi-bin&quot; should be
# changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.

<Directory ~ /Wwwroot/[^\/]*/cgi-bin/>
AllowOverride None
Options ExecCGI
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

# To use CGI scripts:
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
...

The uncommented lines are of course the ones you might be interested in. I left the comments simply for reference.

&quot;/Wwwroot/[^\/]*/cgi-bin/&quot; - For clarification, my site files reside in &quot;C:\

http://Wwwroot&quot;.

The way this is written allows you to execute scripts from any cgi-bin on the server.

The other thing is, if your getting the &quot;couldn't spawn child process&quot; error. More than likely Apache can't find your perl interpreter. If the shebang line in your script is something like /usr/bin/perl, you might need to be a little more specific. Assuming you’re on a windows system try something like c:/usr/bin/perl (your path of course). Apache can also get your interpreter location from the registry by uncomment the &quot;ScriptInterpreterSource registry&quot; in your httpd.config file - But unfortunately this doesn't work for me.

Hope this helps, Jim