Hosting Support
CGI Scripts

Form Mail

We provide the following form mail program on our server to allow your clients to send mail to you from your website. All you need to do is to copy the below into your form (make sure you change everything in italics. Do not copy/cut and paste this information to your page, otherwise it will not work. You must re-key it!

<form action="http://207.235.6.119/cgi-bin/nmail.pl" method="POST">
<input type=hidden name="to" value="email address to send form information to">
<input type=hidden name="redir" value="full http address of the page to redirect to (after submitting)">
<input type=hidden name="subject" value="subject of the email"><br>
Email: <input type="text" name="email" value="a valid sender's email address"><br>
Field 1: <input type="text" name="field1"><br> (enter as many of these as you need changing the field1 with the appropriate question)
</form>

The items in ITALICS above indicated things that you need you to change with your information. Just read what it says and fill in what will work for your website.The nmail.pl script does work. If it is not working for you there is something wrong with the code you put on your form page. Please go back and carefuly check to see that every line is correct and that you do not have any other FormAction tags and that you did not call any of your fields something that is needed by the script. If you have already put a fist through the wall and you just can’t get it contact the support team with the FULL URL of the page and we will take a look at it for you.If you are trying to get this to work from the secure server replace the form action tag with:
<form action="../cgi-bin/nmail.pl" method="POST">

Counters and clocks

We also have a counter script on the server. All you need to do to use it is enter this line to your html:

<img src="http://207.235.6.119/cgi-bin/Count.exe?df=username1.dat&dd=A">

You need to change 'yourdomain' to your username. If you want more than one counter simply increment the 1 (change it to 2 for the second counter etc.).There are a number of different styles of counters on the system, you can try them out by changing 'dd=A' to 'dd=B' or 'dd=C' etc. Do not just cut and paste the above counter code without modifying the username as it will not work correctly. The counter script also works as a clock script. All you need to do to use it is enter this line to your html:

<img src="http://207.235.6.119/cgi-bin/Count.exe?display=clock&timezone=GMT+0000"> You need to change the 'GMT+0000' to reflect your timezone.

Using your own scripts

There are a number of useful scripts you can pick up on the net. You are welcome to use any script providing you have tested it first to make sure that is will not crash the server. Note that on UNIX your scripts must be located in the cgi-bin directory. Here is what you need to do

:1. FTP the script to the cgi-bin directory
2. Upload the script using ASCII
3. Make sure you script uses the extension .pl or .cgi
4. Test the script from the web

We do not provide ANY free help with scripts. A great source of cgi scripts is http://cgi.resourceindex.com.

CPU Load

You are welcome to use any script that you want.  However some scripts use way too much of the CPU.  If this is the case we will contact you and request that you make changes so that we can maintain a fast server for everyone.Please understand the we cannot provide free programing support. This page has most of the information you will need to solve most perl problems. Almost all problems with scripts will create a “Internal Server Error” message form the web server. This means nothing to support or to you. The only thing it tells you is that there is a problem.

FTP is your first line of defense: If the script writes to a file then that file needs to be chmod 777 Check the path to perl, it needs to be /usr/bin/perl. This is normally the first line in the script.

Syntax Error “May not have stripped carriage returns...” You must have used binary to upload your script, always use ASCII.Other errors, check you coding, make sure you are using correct paths (paths are listed on our Support home page - http://www.batchelors.net/hosting/support/). Your support representative will answer question as to the location of programs and files on the server. They will not be able to help in most cases with questions like “It doesn’t work” or “I get x error”.

Internal Server Errors

What is an internal server error (ISE)?
An ISE simply tells you one thing, your script tried to do something that it can't do or that there is an error in the script. Here are the most common problems and solutions that cause ise.
P. Your path to perl is wrong
S. Set it to /usr/bin/perl for UNIX
P. You uploaded the script binary.
S. Tell your ftp program to use ASCII
P. You are trying to write that the web server does not have permission to write to.
S. chmod 777 any files that need to be written to (chmod using your FTP client)
P. There is an error in the script.
S. Find and resolve the error
P. You are missing a lib file.
S. Upload and request support to install the lib for you.
P. You are trying to view a page other than .cgi or .pl in the cgi-bin directory.
S. Move it out of the cgi-bin directory.

Using SSI

SSI is supported. You may use any script in this manner. The only restriction is that you must name your page anyname.shtml. shtml tells the server that the page may contain exec tags that need to be run. SSI is not supported on html pages.

Installing lib files

Some scripts require lib files to be installed. We request that you upload the lib to your home dir (untar them first if possible). Email your support representative, explaining why you need the lib file and they will then install the lib for you.

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