OT: help! I need a CGI person's opinion :)

[Dave Klein]

Hi folks,

Sorry to post something off-topic in here, but I figure if we can discuss Iraq and the US and the
war in the "official" forum, surely I can get away with a computer question here?

I just got a new webhost for my domain (www.apfa.ca).  They said that CGI, Perl, ASP, etc.
capabilities are all included in the package.  My particular domain seems to be hosted on a
Windows server rather than UNIX.

I want to install the standard Count.cgi to get a webcounter on my page.  But these webhosts I
signed up with are no help.  They barely speak English and are telling me just "create a cgi-bin
directory in your webspace and install your CGI program there."

Now, I know how to *call* Count.cgi on a webpage using HTML.  Every other time I've used
Count.cgi, the webhost I've been using has had everything preconfigured on the server end to
use it.  All I had to do was call the function using HTML on my webpage.  But here, apparently, I
gotta do it all myself on the server side as well.

And I'll admit that I'm totally confused.  There's a Windows NT version of Count.cgi; do I need to
use that, since my website is on a Windows server?  I asked my webhost and they said No, I need
to use the UNIX version.  But how can I install a UNIX version of Count.cgi on a WINDOWS
server??  I'm confused.

Any help would be appreciated.  I'm techincally savvy, I just know nothing about UNIX or CGI or
Perl or ASP or anything like that.

Thanks in advance,
Dave

[DanSteph]

Dave Klein wrote:
> Sorry to post something off-topic in here, but I figure if we
> can discuss Iraq and the US and the
> war in the "official" forum, surely I can get away with a
> computer question here?


Just one word about war post, I find the community really mature
sure that we are all in concern whis this subject but people choosed
to keep Orbiter's forum peacefull and they stick to that.
(About myself I keep posting on this in the dedicated forum=news forum)


About CGI:

I do not nothing about this yet while I'm on apache server with php
but perhaps a litle "google search" on this subject can do the job.

I didn't do extended search but just find this if it can help ?


File locations/extensions for running CGI scripts
There's one more thing we need to do in order to run hello.pl as a CGI script: we need to let the
Web server know it's a CGI script. How you do this depends on how your ISP has configured their
Web server. The two most common ways are to change the file's name so it ends with a ".cgi"
extension, or to place the file in a special directory on the server called "/cgi" or "/cgi-bin". Ask your
ISP how the server is configured, and proceed accordingly.

If you want to go ahead and try sticking a ".cgi" extension on the end of your script be my guest;
the worst that will happen if your Web server doesn't support that convention is that it will simply
deliver the text of the script to your browser, rather than executing it. Like I said, ask your ISP.

For this discussion, I'm going to assume that you can run a CGI script in any directory in your Web
space, as long as the script has a ".cgi" extension. So let's copy the script to an appropriate
directory, and change its extension to ".cgi":


It seem to me at least that a majority use "cgi-bin" directory perhaps
you should just look about.

About unix counter google is your friend

here:
http://www.dtp-aus.com/cgiscript/cntscrpt.shtml
http://www.topqualityfreeware.com/counterscripts.shtml
http://www.npsis.com/client/library/cgi.html


The best way if this still don't work is too look on your provider's help page perhaps
they have some help on this subject ?

Hope this help ?  (did you do the www.apfa.ca 's page ? I just had a fast look at it)

Dan

[Dave Klein]

Dan,

Thanks for your reply.....to answer your questions in (semi) order:

I've been putting Google through its paces for a day and a half  Google's always been my best
friend, but it's coming up a bit short this time.  The problem is that the webhost doesn't have any
help page on this (its support page just has stuff on configuring email addresses and so on), and
I've spoken to two guys on the phone there, but they don't seem to be too keen on giving me a
clear explanation of what to do.

Here's what I know:

--I know that my site is being hosted on a Windows server.
--I know that I can create a cgi-bin directory in my site's directory on their server (they don't have
any pre-configured cgi-bin directory or anything).
--I know that I have to somehow "install" a CGI script on the server, probably in a cgi-bin
directory, and then "call" the script via HTML in my webpage (something like "img src=/cgi-
bin/Count.cgi?df=counterfile.dat".)
--I know that Count.cgi version 2.5 or 2.6 is the script I'd like to use ideally, although I'd be open
to others.
--I know that I don't know how to install the script.  I tried downloading the binary file for Count
2.6 for Windows NT, and I installed it on MY computer, but I don't know how to get it installed on
the web server.  I can copy the directories en masse, of course, but I don't think that's all I have
to do...there's got to be more steps to it, yes?
--I know I'm frustrated and stumped

Also, to answer your other question, yes, I did do the www.apfa.ca site  I don't know too much
about fancy php and asp stuff and so on, and to be honest, they really didn't need anything too
fancy, so I just threw something together.  My wife, incidentally, is the Director of the organization
you see there (Parenting for the Future)!  Maybe that's how I got the job to do their website,
eh?  It's a small town.....

Thanks,
Dave

[DanSteph]

Dave Klein wrote:
> I've spoken to two guys on the phone there, but they don't seem
> to be too keen on giving me a
> clear explanation of what to do.

I wonder if all the world phone support number don't goes always
to the same two person because I have almost always the same
reply from various support I tryed

I'm affraid I cannot be of any help for you, perhaps there is an "install" text
in your count package ? Also consider trying another one with better install tips.
Anyways the solution might be simple something like directory name and the
way you call it ?



>My wife, incidentally, is the Director of the organization....
>Maybe that's how I got the job to do their website.....

I wonder also  

Dan

[Dave Klein]

Yeah, I tried all that, Dan....it must be something I'm doing wrong, but I don't know what.  The
only installation instructions really deal with installing on a UNIX server, and of course I'm on a
Windows server.  I've looked at a few other scripts but the biggest thing is that every CGI script
seems to be designed with UNIX in mind, although they all say they will run on Windows (?)  I
dunno, I don't know much about scripting.  All I know a little bit of is Javascript, and I do mean
*little*.

Anyway, thanks for trying...it's amazing to me that no one can help me with this, since Count.cgi is
one of the most basic and oldest web counters out there! :0  I think you're right--there's two tech
support guys in the world, and they're making lots of money telling people "Sorry, can't help you".

Frustratedly yours,
Dave