Stanford CGI Service
Overview
The Stanford CGI (Common Gateway Interface) Service is designed to allow users to run programs on the web server to provide dynamic content, collect user input, and offer services otherwise unavailable on the normal Stanford Web service.
The CGI servers securely executes requested programs out of the owner's AFS space. The owner can be an user, group, or department as long as the owner already has AFS space.
News
September 12, 2006: Changes to the Stanford Web Service affecting www.stanford.edu and cgi.stanford.edu servers.
The primary user-visible change is that the CGI and WWW services have been combined onto the http://www.stanford.edu/ server. This means that the old CGI URL:
http://cgi.stanford.edu/~SUNetID/
will now work at the URL
http://www.stanford.edu/~SUNetID/cgi-bin/
Cgi-bin directories will now be limited to one directory level below the parent user, department, service, or class location in AFS.
The server hardware and operating systems have moved from Sun Solaris to Intel-based systems running Debian Linux. This will affect any compiled binaries that have been running in the CGI service space. Any such binaries will need to be replaced or recompiled under Debian Linux(stable). In general, it is not a good idea to be running compiled binaries under the CGI service unless you are prepared to rebuild or replace such binaries on a regular basis.
The Apache web server has been upgraded to version 2.0.54. The Perl implementation has been upgraded to version 5.8.4 and the existing Perl library set on the CGI service has been migrated. Additional Perl libraries to be included in the service may be requested via HelpSU.
PHP has been upgraded to 5.1.4 by default, with 4.3.10 available for those requiring PHP4. Note that the #! notation is no longer required, nor is the .phpmode file, for files to run under PHP5. PHP5 now also includes the oci8 drivers, as well as MySQL and LDAP via SASL libraries, and the PEAR extension network has been included to handle other library requests.
Python has been upgraded to version 2.3.5.
Activating CGI Service
Activate CGI service for your personal AFS account or request CGI service for a group, department, or class web site.
Documentation
Version Information
| OS | Debian Linux |
| Perl | 5.8.4 |
| PHP | 5.1.4 |
| Python | 2.3.5 |
ITS also offers MySQL service for departments and groups. For more information on MySQL serivce, go to: MySQL Service
