Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail script and
is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research it looks
like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to enable this to
work on an IIS6 server?
Thanks
Tony
That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual folder
called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add any
ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl, it
won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security (they
don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or being
down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff they
are asking you to do.
"Tony"
news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail script and
> is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research it looks
> like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to enable this
> to work on an IIS6 server?
>
> Thanks
>
> Tony
>
The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in the
script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script. Is it
dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of the
FrontPage server extensions?
".._.." <.._..@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>
> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual folder
> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add any
> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>
> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>
> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl, it
> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>
> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security (they
> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or being
> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff they
> are asking you to do.
>
> "Tony"
> news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail script
>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research it
>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to enable
>> this to work on an IIS6 server?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Tony
>>
>
>
I should have added that the developer is looking to have the server email a
form.
"Tony"
news:%23ltJrqp2HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in the
> script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script. Is it
> dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of the
> FrontPage server extensions?
>
>
> ".._.." <.._..@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
> news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
>> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>>
>> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual folder
>> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
>> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add any
>> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>>
>> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>>
>> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl, it
>> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>>
>> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security (they
>> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or being
>> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff
>> they are asking you to do.
>>
>> "Tony"
>> news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail script
>>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research it
>>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to
>>> enable this to work on an IIS6 server?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Tony
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
Ask the developer to use CDO, which is built into Windows Server 2003,
to send the email. It takes like 5 lines of code to send email (and a
few more lines of code to transform a FORM into the email body), all
using built-in technologies on Windows proven to work. You can use
ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, etc to write the code to do it. Heck, you can find
tons of examples on the web to do this.
Then you don't even need to install/maintain Perl, which is just
another codebase that you need to lockdown/secure on your server. You
don't even need FPSE or anything to give them "cgi-bin" access,
either.
In short, you want to have the least amount of software installed on
the server because it's your butt on the line if the developer does
anything wrong within his application that causes the server issues.
Thus, you certainly can accommodate the developer's requests, but it
is in your best interest to steer the developer towards a smaller set
of technologies that you are comfortable supporting; not just whatever
the developer wants you to support because he feels like using it or
is "comfortable" using it.
//David
http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
//
On Aug 9, 8:53 am, "Tony"
> I should have added that the developer is looking to have the server email a
> form.
>
> "Tony"
>
> news:%23ltJrqp2HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>
>
>
> > The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in the
> > script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script. Is it
> > dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of the
> > FrontPage server extensions?
>
> > ".._.." <.....@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
> >news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
> >> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>
> >> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual folder
> >> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
> >> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add any
> >> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>
> >> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>
> >> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl, it
> >> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>
> >> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security (they
> >> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or being
> >> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff
> >> they are asking you to do.
>
> >> "Tony"
> >>news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> >>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail script
> >>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research it
> >>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to
> >>> enable this to work on an IIS6 server?
>
> >>> Thanks
>
> >>> Tony- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thank you for your reply. I did not feel comfortable adding third party
scripting languages to IIS when I thought that this was something that IIS
should be able to handle easily on it's own. I had let the developer know
that we intended to use IIS way back when he was contracted to create the
site and was a bit taken back when after finding out that a perl script was
not able to run that we were running a "very limited server". I appreciate
you taking time for your reply, and you too "_"
Best Regards,
Tony
"David Wang"
news:e.570428.295160@x40g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
> Ask the developer to use CDO, which is built into Windows Server 2003,
> to send the email. It takes like 5 lines of code to send email (and a
> few more lines of code to transform a FORM into the email body), all
> using built-in technologies on Windows proven to work. You can use
> ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, etc to write the code to do it. Heck, you can find
> tons of examples on the web to do this.
>
> Then you don't even need to install/maintain Perl, which is just
> another codebase that you need to lockdown/secure on your server. You
> don't even need FPSE or anything to give them "cgi-bin" access,
> either.
>
> In short, you want to have the least amount of software installed on
> the server because it's your butt on the line if the developer does
> anything wrong within his application that causes the server issues.
> Thus, you certainly can accommodate the developer's requests, but it
> is in your best interest to steer the developer towards a smaller set
> of technologies that you are comfortable supporting; not just whatever
> the developer wants you to support because he feels like using it or
> is "comfortable" using it.
>
>
> //David
> http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
> http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
> //
>
>
>
>
> On Aug 9, 8:53 am, "Tony"
>> I should have added that the developer is looking to have the server
>> email a
>> form.
>>
>> "Tony"
>>
>> news:%23ltJrqp2HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>
>>
>>
>> > The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in
>> > the
>> > script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script. Is
>> > it
>> > dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of the
>> > FrontPage server extensions?
>>
>> > ".._.." <.....@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
>> >news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
>> >> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>>
>> >> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual
>> >> folder
>> >> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
>> >> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add
>> >> any
>> >> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>>
>> >> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>>
>> >> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl,
>> >> it
>> >> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>>
>> >> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security
>> >> (they
>> >> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or
>> >> being
>> >> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff
>> >> they are asking you to do.
>>
>> >> "Tony"
>> >>news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> >>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail
>> >>> script
>> >>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research
>> >>> it
>> >>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to
>> >>> enable this to work on an IIS6 server?
>>
>> >>> Thanks
>>
>> >>> Tony- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
>
Glad to be able to help.
By default, Windows Server 2003 and IIS6 is far from being "limited"
in functionality. You've already got ISAPI, ASP, ASP.Net, and all of
Windows Scripting and Win32 / COM just waiting to be used.
Jumping to Perl, PHP, Ruby, etc is a programming language choice
pretending to be a platform choice. Most developer get familiar with a
couple languages and let it dictate their platform. As a system
administrator, you have to choose the platform to support, and it is
the responsibility of the developer to leverage their language skills
to build on the platform -- and not the other way around.
Thus, a platform without Perl is hardly "limited". It is the developer
that is "limited" in only able to find/build email software with Perl.
That's not to say that Perl doesn't have its advantages, but when it
comes to handling web forms and submitting emails, there are tons of
choices and many better ones. Perl is also quite notorious for being
"unreadable" and "unmaintainable" other than the person who wrote it
(good Perl often looks like a cat walked all over the keyboard with a
ton of symbol sequences).
Yes, Perl is quite the definition of "job security".
//David
http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
//
On Aug 9, 11:08 pm, "Tony"
> Thank you for your reply. I did not feel comfortable adding third party
> scripting languages to IIS when I thought that this was something that IIS
> should be able to handle easily on it's own. I had let the developer know
> that we intended to use IIS way back when he was contracted to create the
> site and was a bit taken back when after finding out that a perl script was
> not able to run that we were running a "very limited server". I appreciate
> you taking time for your reply, and you too "_"
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Tony
>
> "David Wang"
>
> news:e.570428.295160@x40g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > Ask the developer to use CDO, which is built into Windows Server 2003,
> > to send the email. It takes like 5 lines of code to send email (and a
> > few more lines of code to transform a FORM into the email body), all
> > using built-in technologies on Windows proven to work. You can use
> > ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, etc to write the code to do it. Heck, you can find
> > tons of examples on the web to do this.
>
> > Then you don't even need to install/maintain Perl, which is just
> > another codebase that you need to lockdown/secure on your server. You
> > don't even need FPSE or anything to give them "cgi-bin" access,
> > either.
>
> > In short, you want to have the least amount of software installed on
> > the server because it's your butt on the line if the developer does
> > anything wrong within his application that causes the server issues.
> > Thus, you certainly can accommodate the developer's requests, but it
> > is in your best interest to steer the developer towards a smaller set
> > of technologies that you are comfortable supporting; not just whatever
> > the developer wants you to support because he feels like using it or
> > is "comfortable" using it.
>
> > //David
> >http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
> >http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
> > //
>
> > On Aug 9, 8:53 am, "Tony"
> >> I should have added that the developer is looking to have the server
> >> email a
> >> form.
>
> >> "Tony"
>
> >>news:%23ltJrqp2HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>
> >> > The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in
> >> > the
> >> > script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script. Is
> >> > it
> >> > dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of the
> >> > FrontPage server extensions?
>
> >> > ".._.." <.....@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
> >> >news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
> >> >> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>
> >> >> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual
> >> >> folder
> >> >> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
> >> >> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add
> >> >> any
> >> >> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>
> >> >> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>
> >> >> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl,
> >> >> it
> >> >> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>
> >> >> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security
> >> >> (they
> >> >> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or
> >> >> being
> >> >> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff
> >> >> they are asking you to do.
>
> >> >> "Tony"
> >> >>news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> >> >>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail
> >> >>> script
> >> >>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research
> >> >>> it
> >> >>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to
> >> >>> enable this to work on an IIS6 server?
>
> >> >>> Thanks
>
> >> >>> Tony- Hide quoted text -
>
> >> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
"Tony"
news:OIdvUTx2HHA.1484@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Thank you for your reply. I did not feel comfortable adding third party
> scripting languages to IIS when I thought that this was something that IIS
> should be able to handle easily on it's own. I had let the developer know
> that we intended to use IIS way back when he was contracted to create the
> site and was a bit taken back when after finding out that a perl script
> was not able to run that we were running a "very limited server". I
> appreciate you taking time for your reply, and you too "_"
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Tony
Well, in the developers defense, they are using something that is common, I
use the same Perl script and it is pretty easy. It does however require you
to install a program called "Blatt.exe" to be the mail interface (in
addition to Perl). And like the other poster said, CDO works just as well
and is probably a safer thing to be doing.
But, I have a pro Perl programmer in the next office over so I had a safety
net. If you don't have one, then its good to be cautious. (Plus, what kind
of moron developer doesn't know how to use CDO? Sounds like he's trying to
cover his inexperience by pointing out your inexperience.)
As for very limited, tell him you are using the NSA Server setup guide. The
basic rule is, if you dont _need_ it, dont _install_ it., if you dont _need_
access, you don't _get_ access.
I decided to modify the page myself to work with FPSE so I installed
Microsofts Expressions. Wow, Microsoft really did a good job on that
program. Never having used the program before in a little over an hour I
was able to get the froms to send correctly using FPSE. Expressions even
did a great job with the CSS. It looks like I may have to save the pages as
an ASPX page if I would like the form to do any type of data validation. I
am guessing that dreamweaver ( I believe that is what they are using) will
not be able to correctly read an ASPX page?
Thanks again for all the help!!
Tony
"Tony"
news:OIdvUTx2HHA.1484@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Thank you for your reply. I did not feel comfortable adding third party
> scripting languages to IIS when I thought that this was something that IIS
> should be able to handle easily on it's own. I had let the developer know
> that we intended to use IIS way back when he was contracted to create the
> site and was a bit taken back when after finding out that a perl script
> was not able to run that we were running a "very limited server". I
> appreciate you taking time for your reply, and you too "_"
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Tony
>
> "David Wang"
> news:e.570428.295160@x40g2000prg.googlegroups.com...
>> Ask the developer to use CDO, which is built into Windows Server 2003,
>> to send the email. It takes like 5 lines of code to send email (and a
>> few more lines of code to transform a FORM into the email body), all
>> using built-in technologies on Windows proven to work. You can use
>> ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, etc to write the code to do it. Heck, you can find
>> tons of examples on the web to do this.
>>
>> Then you don't even need to install/maintain Perl, which is just
>> another codebase that you need to lockdown/secure on your server. You
>> don't even need FPSE or anything to give them "cgi-bin" access,
>> either.
>>
>> In short, you want to have the least amount of software installed on
>> the server because it's your butt on the line if the developer does
>> anything wrong within his application that causes the server issues.
>> Thus, you certainly can accommodate the developer's requests, but it
>> is in your best interest to steer the developer towards a smaller set
>> of technologies that you are comfortable supporting; not just whatever
>> the developer wants you to support because he feels like using it or
>> is "comfortable" using it.
>>
>>
>> //David
>> http://w3-4u.blogspot.com
>> http://blogs.msdn.com/David.Wang
>> //
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 9, 8:53 am, "Tony"
>>> I should have added that the developer is looking to have the server
>>> email a
>>> form.
>>>
>>> "Tony"
>>>
>>> news:%23ltJrqp2HHA.5360@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> > The script is a file called formmail.pl . Looking at the header in
>>> > the
>>> > script it lists "#!/usr/bin/perl" so I assume it is a perl script.
>>> > Is it
>>> > dificult for a developer that is not using Frontpage to make use of
>>> > the
>>> > FrontPage server extensions?
>>>
>>> > ".._.." <.....@yourmom.mil> wrote in message
>>> >news:DlFui.37549$G23.29782@newsreading01.news.tds.net...
>>> >> That infrastructure does not exist out of the box in IIS.
>>>
>>> >> You have to make a folder (on the hard drive), then make a virtual
>>> >> folder
>>> >> called cgi-bin, put the executable files in it, add read/write to the
>>> >> necessary accounts to the areas the form needs to write too, then add
>>> >> any
>>> >> ISAPI filters (For Perl or PHP or whatever) to the cgi-bin folder.
>>>
>>> >> cgi-bin is a convention started in Unix, but is used elsewhere too.
>>>
>>> >> Is the formmail script Perl, ASP, or something else? (If it's Perl,
>>> >> it
>>> >> won't work until you download and insall Perl on the server.)
>>>
>>> >> Be cautious though, many "developers" pay no attention to security
>>> >> (they
>>> >> don't get the phone call at 3 am about the site getting hacked or
>>> >> being
>>> >> down, so they don't care) so you will need to reality check the stuff
>>> >> they are asking you to do.
>>>
>>> >> "Tony"
>>> >>news:emWVeZo2HHA.5740@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>> >>> Our web developer has created a form that is using the FormMail
>>> >>> script
>>> >>> and is requesting access to the CGI BIN. In doing a little research
>>> >>> it
>>> >>> looks like this is used with Unix and SendMail. Is there a way to
>>> >>> enable this to work on an IIS6 server?
>>>
>>> >>> Thanks
>>>
>>> >>> Tony- Hide quoted text -
>>>
>>> - Show quoted text -
>>
>>
>
>