Bewley Internet Solutions
  Customer CGI Support

This page is meant to help any bewley.net customer troubleshoot CGI problems. For more general information check here

General Info

• User CGI scripts run under your userid with the aid of Apache's suEXEC.
• We recommend that your programs go into a cgi-bin directory. Although CGIs may be in any location, they must end in .cgi if they are not in your cgi-bin directory.
• We recommend that your programs end in .cgi. If your programs are in cgi-bin they may be named anything, but to reduce the risk of your source code being viewed, it is highly recommended you name your programs with an extension of .cgi.

Debugging

• suEXEC is very strict. Your CGI must conform to the following.

  1. User executing the wrapper must be a valid user on this system.
  2. The command that the request wishes to execute must not contain a /.
  3. The current working directory must be a directory.
  4. The current working directory must not be writable by group or other.
  5. The command being executed cannot be a symbolic link.
  6. The command being executed cannot be writable by group or other.
  7. The command being executed cannot be a setuid or setgid program.
  8. The target UID and GID must be a valid user and group on this system.
  9. The target UID and GID to execute as, must match the UID and GID of the directory.

• Check the error_log and cgi.log. If your CGI program still isn't working correctly, be sure to check the error_log and cgi.log. User accounts will find the error log in /httpd/logs/bewley.net/error_log. Domain accounts will find the error log in ~/logs/error_log.

  All users will also find a CGI log in /httpd/logs/cgi.log. This log is created by suExec and will be very helpful in troubleshoot the errors above.

  Run your failing CGI and then type "tail ~/logs/error_log" or "tail /httpd/logs/bewley.net/error_log" and "tail /httpd/logs/cgi.log" to see any error messages.

• Links to further debugging aids, such as The Idiot's Guide to Solving Perl CGI Problems are available on our main CGI page.