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adamtki · Oct 26, 2003, 04:53 AM

I can't get my first perl script to run. I get "Internal Server Error". The web server works because static pages work fine. And I'm hitting the correct url, because if I change the file name, I get a different error on the web page (Not Found). It can't be too complicated just to turn on CGI scripting in OS X!

here's what I did:

1. Create test.pl in BBEdit:

#!/usr/local/bin/perl

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<HTML>\n";
print "<BODY>\n";
print "Hello World\n";
print "</BODY></HTML>";

2. Saved it in /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables

3. Changed permissions via
chmod 755 test.pl
through the terminal

4. Opened the page through Safari:
http://192.168.1.3/cgi-bin/test.pl

That's my IP address

5. Got the error "Internal Server Error"... etc..

I checked my error logs:
[Sun Oct 26 01:46:36 2003] [error] (2)No such file or directory: exec of /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/test.pl failed
[Sun Oct 26 01:46:36 2003] [error] [client 192.168.1.3] Premature end of script headers: /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/test.pl

Any ideas? Thanks.

wadesworld · Oct 26, 2003, 11:07 AM

I'd be willing to bet you have it saved with Mac line endings, which Perl doesn't understand.

Save it with Unix line endings and try again.

Wade

adamtki · Oct 26, 2003, 02:05 PM

Thanks, I was really hoping that would work. I did have it saved with Mac LF (OD). Now I saved it with UNIX LF (OA). But I still get the error:

0000: 23 21 2F 75 73 72 2F 6C 6F 63 61 6C 2F 62 69 6E #!/usr/local/bin
0010: 2F 70 65 72 6C 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 /perl.
0020: 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
0030: 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 0A 70 72 69 .pri
0040: 6E 74 20 22 43 6F 6E 74 65 6E 74 2D 74 79 70 65 nt "Content-type
0050: 3A 20 74 65 78 74 2F 68 74 6D 6C 5C 6E 5C 6E 22 : text/html\n\n"
0060: 3B 20 0A 70 72 69 6E 74 20 22 3C 48 54 4D 4C 3E ; .print "<HTML>
0070: 5C 6E 22 3B 0A 70 72 69 6E 74 20 22 3C 42 4F 44 \n";.print "<BOD
0080: 59 3E 5C 6E 22 3B 0A 70 72 69 6E 74 20 22 48 65 Y>\n";.print "He
0090: 6C 6C 6F 20 57 6F 72 6C 64 5C 6E 22 3B 0A 70 72 llo World\n";.pr
00A0: 69 6E 74 20 22 3C 2F 42 4F 44 59 3E 3C 2F 48 54 int "</BODY></HT
00B0: 4D 4C 3E 22 3B 0A ML>";.

(same error shows up in the error log)

Mithras · Oct 26, 2003, 04:37 PM

1st step with any CGI problem is to try to run it in the terminal to isolate problems with your CGI from problems with the CGI/Webserver interaction.

So, open Terminal, and type
cd /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables

then do
./test.pl

and see what happens.

If it works, then you know the problem lies with your Apache config.

If it doesn't work, then it's a problem with your CGI itself.

suthercd · Oct 26, 2003, 05:32 PM

There should be test-cgi and printenv files in you CGI_executables. Do they work as expected? That will let you know if your internal web-sharing is working properly.

HTH
Craig

bzImage · Oct 26, 2003, 05:34 PM

Sun Oct 26 01:46:36 2003] [error] (2)No such file or directory: exec of /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/test.pl failed
[Sun Oct 26 01:46:36 2003] [error] [client 192.168.1.3

---

You really have perl in /usr/local/bin ?

Scarpa · 07:23 PM

Originally posted by adamtki:
[Sun Oct 26 01:46:36 2003] [error] [client 192.168.1.3] Premature end of script headers: /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/test.pl

This error says it all.

The script header is the #! directive that specifies where to find perl. Everything else is the script itself.

Since it's erroring on that first line, I'm guessing perl doesn't live at /usr/local/bin/perl. On my PB it's at /usr/bin/perl.

EDIT: To be sure, type "where perl" on the command line.

adamtki · 11:40 PM

It was a combination of problems. I had to save it with Unix LF AND change the perl path to /usr/bin/perl.

I did try changing the perl path to that before but it failed since I didn't have the correct LF characters.

Also, I read about those sample perl scripts as well, but they didn't exist on my system. It might be cause I'm using 10.3 instead of 10.2.

Now to see if I can get the scripts to run by having them in my local user website folder.

Thanks again.

suthercd · Oct 26, 2003, 10:58 PM

adamtki-

There is a way to modify your httpd.conf file to both remove the need for the .cgi suffix and to have cgi scripts work in locations other than /Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables. Browse the website to begin finding out more about this.

Craig

incandenza · Oct 28, 2003, 10:09 AM

Originally posted by Scarpa:
This error says it all.

The script header is the #! directive that specifies where to find perl. Everything else is the script itself.

Actually that's not quite right. The script headers are the HTTP headers that the script is supposed to output. If the script doesn't output any headers, you get this message. If you create a CGI that has a valid path to perl but doesn't output anything, you will still get this message.

Your diagnosis (bad path to perl) was correct, but what actually tells you that is the "No such file or directory" message, which in this case refers to the interpreter, not the script itself.

Scarpa · Oct 28, 2003, 02:52 PM

Originally posted by incandenza:
Actually that's not quite right. The script headers are the HTTP headers that the script is supposed to output.

Cool, thanks for the clarification.