Running Perl Scripts in "cgi-bin"

This section describes how to verify Apache httpd configuration and run Perl CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts in the default ScriptAlias directory: \local\apache\cgi-bin.

With both ActivePerl 5 and Apache 2 installed on my Windows system, I continued to configure the Apache server to support Perl CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts:

1. Open the Apache configuration file, \local\apache\conf\httpd.conf, in a text editor.

2. Make sure that the CGI script directory is defined correctly. Go to alias_module section. You should see the ScriptAlias line is defined as:

<IfModule alias_module>
...
   ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "C:/local/apache/cgi-bin/"
</IfModule>

3. Check the access control section for the CGI script directory. It should look like this:

<Directory "C:/local/apache/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride None
    Options None
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

4. Enter this test Perl CGI script, hello_CGI.pl, with a text editor. Note that the first line must specify correctly where the perl.exe is installed.

#!/local/perl/bin/perl.exe
   print "Content-Type: text/html\n\n";
   print "<html><body>\n";
   print "Hello world!\n";
   print "</html></body>\n";

5. Copy hello_CGI.pl to the CGI script directory: /local/apache/cgi-bin/hello_CGI.pl.

6. Finally, run the script page at: http://localhost/cgi-bin/hello_CGI.pl with a Web browser. You should see the output on the browser as:

Hello world!

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Perl on Linux Systems

 ActivePerl on Windows Systems

 Data Types: Values and Variables

 Expressions, Operations and Simple Statements

 User Defined Subroutines

 Perl Built-in Debugger

 Name Spaces and Perl Module Files

 Symbolic (or Soft) References

 Hard References - Addresses of Memory Objects

 Objects (or References) and Classes (or Packages)

 Typeglob and Importing Identifiers from Other Packages

 String Built-in Functions and Performance

 File Handles and Data Input/Output

 Open Files in Binary Mode

 Open Directories and Read File Names

 File System Functions and Operations

 Image and Picture Processing

 Using DBM Database Files

 Using MySQL Database Server

 Socket Communication Over the Internet

 XML::Simple Module - XML Parser and Generator

 XML Communication Model

 SOAP::Lite - SOAP Server-Client Communication Module

 Perl Programs as IIS Server CGI Scripts

 CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

 XML-RPC - Remote Procedure Call with XML and HTTP

 RPC::XML - Perl Implementation of XML-RPC

Integrating Perl with Apache Web Server

 Downloading Apache HTTP Server 2.2.25 for Windows

 Installing Apache HTTP Server 2.2.25 on Windows

 Publishing HTML Documents as Web Pages

 Starting and Stopping Apache Server

Running Perl Scripts in "cgi-bin"

 printenv.pl - Testing Perl CGI Environment

 500 Internal Server Error

 cgi-lib.pl - The Standard Library for CGI Scripts

 ReadParse() - Parsing Web Form Input Values

 Running Perl Scripts in "htdocs"

 CGI.pm Module for Building Web Pages

 LWP::UserAgent and Web Site Testing

 Converting Perl Script to Executable Binary

 Managing Perl Engine and Modules on macOS

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB