Archives > CGI Script Installation Tutorial

By Benny Alexander

Getting ready to install
I recommend that you to prepare what will be needed for the process of installation, list them on a paper. You can use it even for installing other scripts in the future.

You can either use telnet or any FTP program for uploading or downloading a file to your server. I use WS_FTP from IPSwitch.com. If you are a beginner, this kind of FTP software can make your work much easier.

1. Find the location of the Perl program in your server
This is the path of the Perl interpreter in you server. You can get this information by either telnet your server (if you have the access to telnet your server because some servers don't allow you to use this facility) or by asking your system administrator. It may be something like,

This will vary from server to server.
If you have telnet access you can type the following and you will find the path,

2. The server path (or root directory path) to your CGI-bin directory.
Remember this is not the URL of your CGI-bin directory, but this is the path of the the cgi-bin directory in your server. Your server administrator should tell you this if they allotted a CGI-bin directory with full access. This may look like

3. The URL of the cgi-bin directory
I know you are aware of this, you can get this also from these same people. This may be like

Now I hope you know the difference between a "Root directory path" and a URL from the two path names above.

4. Path of the sendmail program
This will be used by the scripts which are sending any input information from your site to the users or to you by E-mail. For example, a feedback form uses the 'sendmail' program to send the details (which was filled up and sent by the user) to your mail box. This could be like,

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