Can't Get Guestbook CGI Script to Work

[Gavin]

I'm trying to use the script guestbook.pl, which I've placed in the CGI bin and am calling from the form at http://www.b-iris.com/tlupl21o_guestbook.html.

When I hit "submit," I get the following error page:

> Internal Server Error
>
> The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was
> unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator,
> webmaster@b-iris.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and
> anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
>
> More information about this error may be available in the server error
> log.
>
> Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an
> ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Permissions are supposed to be "a+rx" - I'm not sure what that works out to numerically, so I've set them to 777.

I also think that I may have erred in the following section of the script, since I'm not sure what $guestbookreal, $guestlog, and $date_command should be.

$guestbookurl = "http://www.b-iris.com/guestbook.html";
$guestbookreal = "/usr/www/users/iris/guestbook.html";
$guestlog = "/usr/www/users/iris/guestlog.html";
$cgiurl = "http://www.b-iris.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.pl";
$date_command = "/usr/bin/date";

Thanks,

Andrew

[midwest]

a+rx==755

a 500 is a general error, put this as your first line after the shebang(!#/usr/bin/perl)

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

It will sometimes give you a better idea of what the problem is. Have you checked your error log?

$guestbookreal = "/usr/www/users/iris/guestbook.html"; --- this should be the path. Probably something like /home/username/public_html/guestbook.html

.

[BobtheWebMan2]

Also, since you have the actual script, try hacking through it a bit, cutting out various pieces until you find the line that is triggering the fault. Once you get it down to a specific line you will have a better chance of figuring out if it's you or a general Perl / System Interface problem.

[midwest]

One thing I forgot to mention. Line endings are one of the most common causes of 500 errors. Get a text editor that can change between DOS and Unix line endings.
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/steveb/...e/pfefiles.htm
The above, PFE,(Programmers File Editor) is a great editor. At the bottom when you open a file you will see some boxes. One will have either DOS or Unix in it. If the file has DOS endings it will never run under Perl. If this is the case then just double click the DOS and it will change to Unix type endings. Just save the file and upload it again.

.

[Gavin]

$guestbookreal = "/home/iris/public_html/guestbook.html";
did the trick. Thanks!

Andrew