System command on servers

[AndreaN]

Dear Monks, I have a script in which I use system ("command") to launch a Java application that is in the same folder of the script. Something like:

$command = "java -mx300m -classpath application_name.jar  -model path"
+;
system("$command");

When used on my machine this works fine. Now I'm trying to run the same code from a cgi folder on a server. When I run the same script as a cgi script on the server everything works fine except for the system ("$command") part. It seems like I cannot run that Java application from the server. Or perhaps servers do not accept the "system" function at all? Or perhaps I cannot have a .jar file in the cgi folder? Does anybody know something that can help me diagnose the problem? I apologise in advance if any of this does not make sense. I have never received formal training in programming or computer science and I'm just learning by doing. Thanks a lot.

[Anonymous Monk]

system() is blocking, webservers don't like cgi programs that block and take a long time ... Proc::Background can help with that if thats the problem, the checklists help with the rest :) Basic debugging checklist , brian's Guide to Solving Any Perl Problem, CGI Help Guide , Troubleshooting Perl CGI scripts

[Corion]

In addition, see Managing a long running server side process using CGI, and also Watching long processes through CGI.