CGI not accepted by server.

[anmaco]

This is as much a moan as a question, but any input would be welcome. I have just learnt that our main server in France 'Wanadoo' - the one owned by the national telephone company (who also make us pay around $2 an hour for calls - writing this gibberish is costing me a fortune) - Ok so they don't accept CGI scripts - except their own 'for security reasons' or so they say. Apparently this is quite common with servers in France! So my sweet amateurish little home page has a counter and visitors book done in CGI/Perl. 1. Am I likely to find the same problem with servers in other (dare I say) more advanced countries. 2. If for some misguided reason I wanted to use a server in France is there a way round it - Javascript?

[Alokito]

Hmm... In order to have a counter or guestbook work, you need to be able to modify a file on a server somewhere to remember what has already been entered. Javascript cannot do this.

In both of the cases offered by Nesh, this was not done through javascript. In the first case, it was done through email, and in the second, through a CGI script. These are the actions that are taken when the form is submitted (hint- check the action element of the form tag). The javascript just does input validation before you submit.

It's easy to get a counter; it just has to be hosted on a machine which allows CGI scripts. such counters are freely available on the web, such as here

The only way for you to get a guestbook working is to either find an email based guestbook system and run a cron job or something that updates the guestbook when you get new mail, update the guestbook by hand yourself when you get the email, or find someone else to host your guestbook on a machine which hosts guestbooks. I haven't heard of such a thing, probably because guestbooks require a lot more resources than a counter, and people want to have more control over how they work.

[anmaco]

Thanks. I have decided against a counter - nobody wants to know that only 15 people have visited my site in the last 2,000,000 years. I have found a server at 'iVillage' which I can use with CGI. I mainly wrote these scripts as a learning process to get me into Perl. Make you mad though - all that work - then they don't want it!!!! Thanks to all for input!

[Saganaga]

Actually, there are quite a few places that offer remotely hosted guestbooks. My dad's internet service provider doesn't allow cgi scripts in their web space, so he uses a guestbook at htmlgear. There are a bunch of other remotely-hosted guestbook providers listed at the cgi-resources site.

[neshura]

1. Some providers yes, some no. Smaller providers will let you get away with more. But their security is, necessarily, pretty poor, in my opinion. I had a shell/mysql/perl/php package at digitalspace which was relatively cheap, and the server/service was okay, not great (UCITA VIOLATION IN PROGRESS).
2. Sure. a quick search turned up this page. Too bad I nuked my JS rant...but yes, sure you can do a lot with Javascript.

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Update: Alokito is correct. You have to have some kind of write permission. If you can't run your own scripts, it's unlikely that you have any way to write.
Guestbook.

e-mail neshura

[sean]

This same thing is common in the USA as well, at least for the personal webspace provided with a basic dial up account. Other than javascript, you could also check around for free counters hosted elsewhere. I haven't used one in years, but there used to be a plethora of them availible with no strings attatched, save that clicking on the counter image brings you to their site. In this day & age, I would check to see that they don't do more before using one. (I.E., use cookies to track my visitors for nasty purposes)