Week 2: Configuring FormMail.pl

Objectives

By the end of this session, you will be able to

• Download and unzip a PERL script from an archive
• Follow the instructions in Activity 3 to configure the script
• Read the 'readme' file supplied with the script to explore other configuration options
• Use an FTP program to upload the script to your Web server space
• Change the permissions for the cgi-bin folder you created and for the script file using the CHMOD command
• Modify your form ACTION attribute to point to the copy of the script in your own server space
• Test the form using the script in your server space
• Post a message to other course participants celebrating your success!

Web Links

The FormMail script can be downloaded from http://www.scriptarchive.com/nms-download.cgi?s=nms-formmail&c=zip - just click on the large grey button (you do not have to supply your e-mail address if you do not want to).

You might want to have a look around Matt's Script Archive at http://www.scriptarchive.com/ just to see what things are available - most of these scripts are simple single file scripts and Matt has a consistent way of configuring all his scripts. I would advise you to always use the nms versions of Matt's scripts for security reasons.

There are nice clear visual isntructions for setting the permissions for the FormMail.pl script at http://support.discusware.com/center/resources/howto/chmod.html - we will be using this page in Week 4. To understand CHMOD and Unix permissions, take a deep breath and try http://www.december.com/unix/tutor/permissions.html. I'll have a suitably devious set of exercises on this for Week 4 of the course.

Activity

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Last modified: 5th Oct 02