Perl script installation

[Leef]

I downloaded a guestbook from worlwidemart.com. I've edited the perl script to include the correct URL, edited each .html document to point to the CGI-BINand changed the permissions, but I still get an error with I access the script from a browser. I'm confused, and POWweb technical support doesn't help with 3rd party scripts.

Did I forget to do something?

[mairving]

Most often it is a permission thing which means that you will have the chmod the script. That is the most likely problem but what exactly does the error message say?

[Leef]

Ok...when I tested the guestbook, it gave me a 500 internal error, which at POWweb is a page not found error I think. In the FAQ, it says that it's usally a permission setting that causes it...but I changed the permissions...I even set them to -rwxrwxrwxrwx. It still doesn't work.

One more thing...I can't telnet into the account...I have to use my FTP program to change the permissions

Here's the URL for the page with the guestbook.

[mairving]

A 500 server error is much more than a page not found error. I have only encountered it once. That was when a perl script was misconfigured. Did you set the permissions on the script. It looks like the script that you are using should be chmoded like so:
chmod 777 guestbook/
chmod 777 guestbook/guestbook.html
chmod 777 guestbook/guestlog.html
chmod 744 guestbook/addguest.html
chmod 755 cgi-bin/guestbook.pl

You can chmod through FTP also.

Let me know if that doesn't fix it and I will test it on my machine.

[Leef]

Ok, I'm kinda lost now. The only way I know to change permissions in the FTP program I use is by right clicking the directory or file and selecting change permissions then. To change them, I either check or uncheck boxes read, write and execute for user, group and world

I've been working with HTMl for a few years, but I'm a newbie to scripts and such. I you wouldn't mind, could you look at the files and check to see if they are modified correctly. My email is leef@leefy.com

I'd appreciate any help you could offer

[mairving]

Well I played around with it a bit. There are two places that you need to edit. One is the guestbook.pl file. You need to change the guestbookurl, guestbookreal, guestlog and cgiurl. The other file to edit is the addguest.html file. You need to change the line form method=post action="change to your url" and the line at the bottom below the form. After I edited it, I still couldn't get it to work on my machine.

I really wasn't all that impressed with the guestbook. I really wouldn't spend much time on it because of that. It should be easier with a PHP guestbook. Try here to find a better one.

[Leef]

As far as I know I changed everything to how it's supposed to be. I'm just confused. It'll probably be easier to talk to one of the teachers at school so he can show me what I'm doing wrong. I tried one of the php guestbooks, but it didn't work either....so I think it's just a permission problem. And I don't know how I can change them other than right-clicking the file in my FTP client.

Thanks for all the help anyway...I just gotta keep practicing

[Paul Victorey]

Also, at least the last time I did perl scripting, the first line has to be the path to the perl interpreter.

It often is:

#!usr/local/bin/perl

but if this path is not the same on this system, then it won't work, and will need altering.