cgi-bin problem

I am running Apache 1.3.14 on Win 98. PHP & Perl are installed and are
running correctly.
The directory structure is C:/Perl C:/apache/www/cgi-bin
C:/apache/www/...<other files and directories>

My problem is this: I am trying to use a published script to upload files
via a form from a webpage. When I click submit, I get the usual "Page
cannot be found". It appears that the "upload.cgi" in the cgi-bin directory
cannot be accessed.

I tried putting a file in the cgi-bin and then accessing it through IE6
using localhost/cgi-bin/.... I got the "Page cannot be found". I then
changed the directory name from cgi-bin to cgibin and went to
localhost/cgibin/... This time I could access the file OK.

It seem that the directory cannot be accessed when it has the hyphen in and
this is stopping the form from working. I posted to the php group, but a
response from there, suggested it was an Apache problem.

Any help much appreciated.

Geoff.

Geoff said the following on 17/08/2004 10:30:

 > I am running Apache 1.3.14 on Win 98. PHP & Perl are installed and are
 > running correctly.
 > The directory structure is C:/Perl C:/apache/www/cgi-bin
 > C:/apache/www/...<other files and directories>

I have no experience with Apache on a Windows platform, but generally a
CGI directory should not be part of the DocumentRoot. I couldn't find
any documents explaining why, but it has to do with security. If I find
them, I'll post them later.

 > I tried putting a file in the cgi-bin and then accessing it through IE6
 > using localhost/cgi-bin/.... I got the "Page cannot be found". I then
 > changed the directory name from cgi-bin to cgibin and went to
 > localhost/cgibin/... This time I could access the file OK.

There's probably a ScriptAlias line in your httpd.conf pointing
somewhere outside your DocumentRoot (like it should) and therefor your
"upload.cgi" couldn't be found. When you changed your directory name to
"cgibin" it's not matched by the ScriptAlias directive and therefor
Apache looked in your DocumentRoot where you've made the directory. You
probably could have figured this out by looking at the error logs.
Anyway, for more details about ScriptAlias, see:

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html#scriptalias" target="_blank">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_alias.html#scriptalias</a>

And you should probably read:

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/cgi.html" target="_blank">http://httpd.apache.org/docs/howto/cgi.html</a>

 > Any help much appreciated.

HTH

--
Regards
Harrie<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->