Sooner or later every webmaster needs CGI.

It is difficult to imagine the website maintainence with out CGI.

CGI scripts can be used to process a simple form to maintaining a membership area. There are many scripts online, which can be used to automate your website.

**Form proccessing
**Autoresponders
**Order taking, Order proccessing
**Steamline your downloads
**Protecting your private folders
**Easy maintanence of the website
**Tracking your advertisements
**Maintaining an affiliate site
**Counters, classifieds, link directories...
There is no end to this list.

But the problem with cgi scripts is 'how to install on your servers?'

You don't have to learn perl or write scripts on your own to maintain your CGIs.

As a webmaster of your site you need to know about installing scripts for yourself. Otherwise you will end up with paying hundreds of dollars for script installations.

Basic THREE steps that you should check during cgi installations are:

1.UPLOADING OF FILES:

CGI files should be uploaded in ASCII mode. In this mode the 'end-of-line' character translated properly and the script lines are transfered in proper format. (In BINARY mode, the characters will not be translated. Instead they are transfered exactly as a duplicates)

Tip: DON'T run your FTP software in automode to upload cgi files. Set it to ASCII mode manually and upload the files.

2.CONFIGURING THE SCRIPTS:

When you buy a script, you have to set few variables. So that the script runs correctly on your server.

When you doing this, you should have an idea about your server perl paths, absolute paths, URLs etc. The URLs are case sensitive.

Scriptname.cgi
scriptname.cgi
scriptname.pl
Scriptname.pl

All four are taken differently by your server.

3.FILE PERMISSIONS:

Once you upload files, don't rush to run the script. Set and check the file permissions.

If you don't set the permissions to cgi or pl files, the server doesn't get access to your files and you will see '500 Internal server error'.

Most of the times cgi files need to be '755'. Always check the instructions of the script providers.

If you are keeping an eye on these three steps,you can do your script installations!

Radhika Venkata (c)

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