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Posted to users@tomcat.apache.org by Felipe <fe...@gmail.com> on 2013/11/20 03:01:09 UTC
Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Hello,
I am running Manjaro Linux (0.8.7) using the linux 3.4.69 kernel on a Dell
XPS m1330 laptop. I am trying to run a sample webpage that uses perl and
cgi to handle a form.
These are the steps I took:
* wget
http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.0-RC5/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
* tar xvzf apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
* mkdir ~/tomcat
* sudo mv apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5 ~/tomcat
* sudo vi ~/.bashrc
* append export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk
* append export CATALINA_HOME=~/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5
* run $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
I was able to pull up the tomcat control panel, I then edited the web.xml
file. I uncommented the cgi servlet block as well as the cgi-servlet
mapping block. I also changed path prefix:
<init-param>
<param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name>
<param-value>WEB-INF/cgi-bin/*</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
as well as created a user and password in the tomcat-users.xml, so i could
use the manager GUI.
I proceeded to create a directory (web) in my home folder
and created a sub-directory (cgi-bin). I have 3 files that make up the web
page.
the html file is as follows:
GNU nano 2.2.6 File: ProjectAnalysis.html
<!- Program Name: projest.html ->
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Project Analysis</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<H2>Average Profit per Project Calculation</H2>
<FORM METHOD=POST
ACTION="
http://localhost/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/web/cgi-bin/projest.cgi
">
Total cost of projects last year? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projcost SIZE=10>
Number of Projects? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projects SIZE=10>
Project revenue received? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=revenue SIZE=10>
<HR><INPUT TYPE=submit NAME=submit VALUE=Submit>
<INPUT TYPE=reset NAME=reset VALUE="Start over">
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>
the .cgi file is as follows:
#!/usr/bin/perl
# Program name: projest.cgi
require "subparseform.lib";
&Parse_Form;
$projcost = $formdata{'projcost'};
$projects = $formdata{'projects'};
$revenue = $formdata{'revenue'};
$average = $projcost / $projects;
$average = sprintf("%.2f", $average);
$grossprofit = $revenue - $projcost;
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<P>Project Cost Last Year was $projcost dollars.";
print "<P>We completed $projects projects during the year.
That works out to an average of $average cost per project.";
print "<P>Our annual Project Revenue was $revenue dollars.
We made a gross profit of $grossprofit dollars";
the subparse.lib file:
GNU nano 2.2.6 File: subparseform.lib
sub Parse_Form {
if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET') {
@pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
} elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
read (STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
@pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
if ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}) {
@getpairs =split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
push(@pairs,@getpairs);
}
} else {
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
print "<P>Use Post or Get";
}
foreach $pair (@pairs) {
($key, $value) = split (/=/, $pair);
$key =~ tr/+/ /;
$key =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$value =~ tr/+/ /;
$value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
$value =~s/<!--(.|\n)*-->//g;
if ($formdata{$key}) {
$formdata{$key} .= ", $value";
} else {
$formdata{$key} = $value;
}
}
}
1;
I have manually open the html file from firefox's menu, and I when I submit
data into the farm, I get an unable to connect to server error. I'm not
sure where to go from here, I believe the folder(s) for the web page should
be in the tomcat/apache... folder , I'm just not sure where.
I would appreciate any help on this specific problem. Thanks in advance
Re: [OT] Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by André Warnier <aw...@ice-sa.com>.
Felipe wrote:
> Interesting, so do container-based systems such as Tomcat rely heavely on
> httpd?
Not necessarily. Read on.
I've read that many people use Tomcat just for webapp deployment and
> use apache to handle static pages, among other things, but is it reasonable
> to use Tomcat to handle static pages, or is it solely for webapp server?
By design, Tomcat is primarily a "java servlet container", meaning that its primary design
goal is to provide an environment to run java servlets efficiently.
But it is rarely so that applications would consist only of java servlets, so there exists
also within Tomcat a "default servlet", which is invoked by Tomcat to serve any request
which cannot clearly be assigned to any other servlet, and which consequently does serves
most static content (html pages, stylesheets, images, ..).
And it just so happens that this default servlet is very efficient too, so that in the end
Tomcat can perfectly be used as a "generic webserver" to serve both static content, along
with the results of servlets execution.
There also exists a "cgi-bin servlet" which can run cgi-bin scripts and programs.
But this cgi-bin servlet is not really optimised for any particular kind of cgi-bin
programs/scripts, and that is where other webservers may "beat tomcat" in terms of efficiency.
For example, if you are talking about cgi-bin scripts written in Perl or PHP : there exist
special add-on modules for the Apache httpd webserver, which can optimise the running of
scripts written in such languages (usually by pre-compiling them and keeping the compiled
version in some cache memory)(*). Such add-on modules do not exist for tomcat, and thus
if a main part of an application would consist of such scripts, it would be more efficient
in an overall sense to use a front-end webserver like Apache httpd, to run these parts of
the application, and then have Apache httpd "delegate" to a tomcat back-end what is
destined for java servlets.
When you reflect about this, it is exactly the same in reverse : Apache httpd could also
run cgi-bin scripts written in Java. It would just have to start a JVM at each
invocation, to compile and run the java script.
Of course, that would be very inefficient, which is why for running java servlets it is
better to use tomcat (or another java servlet container).
There is nothing /in the principle/ that would prevent someone from writing a special java
"perl cgi-bin servlet" for tomcat, which would duplicate the functionality of some of what
the mod_perl module does for Apache httpd, and make it very efficient to run perl cgi-bin
scripts under tomcat (**).
It just hasn't been done yet, the main reason being probably : why do it ? (when it is
easy to configure Apache httpd as a front-end to tomcat, and do it there using mod_perl).
(*) See http://perl.apache.org
(**) and similarly, one could think about a "mod_java" add-on module for Apache httpd
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Re: [OT] Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>.
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Hash: SHA256
Felipe,
On 11/22/13, 10:29 AM, Felipe wrote:
> Interesting, so do container-based systems such as Tomcat rely
> heavely on httpd?
No, but it's quite common to see httpd used to "front" a Tomcat-based
application. This is a good strategy when you need complicated
deployments with different JVMs running different applications (or
maybe just multiple JVMs running the same application, for fail-over
and load-balancing).
> I've read that many people use Tomcat just for webapp deployment
> and use apache to handle static pages, among other things, but is
> it reasonable to use Tomcat to handle static pages, or is it solely
> for webapp server?
Tomcat does a great job as a static web server, but to get better
performance from the default you should:
1. Enable APR (connectors will auto-detect and use) if you use HTTPS
or
2. Switch to the NIO connector if you don't use HTTPS
APR's OpenSSL-based TLS implementation turns out to be faster than
other combinations of code. NIO and APR are about evenly-matched when
it comes to throughput and scalability, though I would bet on NIO all
other things being equal.
> I'm actually interested in using Tomcat for a personal project. It
> is using an Arduino Uno microcontroller (an AVR microcoontroller,
> specifically Atmel's ATMEGA 328), I would like to use the arduino
> as a server that could handle requests by way of a web interface
> control panel. I think this is would be an appropiate scenario to
> use JSP and Tomcat.
A JVM will not likely be a great choice on that platform. Modest
processor and low memory? Sounds like a disaster for a server-quality
JVM. You could look at an embedded JVM, but running Tomcat on top of
that isn't likely to pay off.
> Initially I would create a simple webapp that has prompt (where a
> user can input a command that the arduino will then act on) and
> display analog reading's (so as to monitor).
This kind of thing can be done with a simple Bash script, and use a
lot less memory. Be aware that what you are doing is (intentionally)
opening a huge security hole in your setup.
> I'm just no sure how to go about hosting tomcat, I'm pretty sure it
> is not possible to run on the arduino, but maybe using port
> forwarding or web socket to have Tomcat on a laptop or maybe a
> rasberry pi. Would this be a feasible method?
Probably not. If you were going to do all that, what's the point in
running Tomcat at all?
- -chris
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Re: [OT] Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Felipe <fe...@gmail.com>.
Interesting, so do container-based systems such as Tomcat rely heavely on
httpd? I've read that many people use Tomcat just for webapp deployment and
use apache to handle static pages, among other things, but is it reasonable
to use Tomcat to handle static pages, or is it solely for webapp server?
Thanks Neven, I was able to get the cgi script working, I'm in the process
of dissecting and writing the steps to have tomcat host the cgi-script for
my professor, we talked and he saw that apache was what was meant to be
used but he encouraged my efforts in using Tomcat instead. Even if it isn't
the logical way to the exercise. There's a possibility that they might use
the this as an example of Tomcat's cgi support.
I'm actually interested in using Tomcat for a personal project. It is using
an Arduino Uno microcontroller (an AVR microcoontroller, specifically
Atmel's ATMEGA 328), I would like to use the arduino as a server that could
handle requests by way of a web interface control panel. I think this is
would be an appropiate scenario to use JSP and Tomcat. Initially I would
create a simple webapp that has prompt (where a user can input a command
that the arduino will then act on) and display analog reading's (so as to
monitor). I'm just no sure how to go about hosting tomcat, I'm pretty sure
it is not possible to run on the arduino, but maybe using port forwarding
or web socket to have Tomcat on a laptop or maybe a rasberry pi. Would this
be a feasible method?
On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 8:36 PM, Christopher Schultz <
chris@christopherschultz.net> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA256
>
> Neven,
>
> On 11/20/13, 11:48 AM, Neven Cvetkovic wrote:
> > Ultimately, CGI is a very old technology that had its own share of
> > performance (and security) problems. Usually, CGI scripts were
> > replaced with superior Java Servlet technology (or some other
> > better technology) and hence the need for Tomcat application server
> > (servlet container). Hopefully, the rest of the mailing list
> > members share my sentiments about the CGI :)
>
> - -0
>
> The only thing that really makes CGI "outdated" is that CGI itself
> didn't have an API... or if you could call it an API, it was very
> basic. It basically said "you get the query string in a big blob and
> you can read standard input if you want to get the entity body". Then
> everyone set to work writing their own custom parsing routines. I
> remember copy/pasting stuff in Perl way back in 1994 and now having
> any idea what the code actually did.
>
> These days, you can pretty much write a Perl script and say "use CGI;"
> and it's just magic, safe, etc. CGI has come a long way.
>
> The last remaining problem is really that of performance: the CGI
> model launches a new process for each request (even though you can
> cheat a bit using things like mod_perl, etc.) and so there is a
> performance hit right there. If you want to keep information between
> requests, you have no choice but to write it to some form of
> non-volatile storage (as far as the "application" is concerned).
> RDBMS, flat file, etc.
>
> More recent systems (I hesitate to say "modern" because it implies
> that they are better simply because they are newer, and that the older
> methodologies are simply worse by definition) are supported by much
> more complicated software, APIs, etc.
>
> Note that container-based systems like Tomcat have their own
> performance problems: they have to manage all the stuff that they are
> ... well, required to support. If you peel-away all of the stuff that
> Apache httpd provides *aside* from the Common Gateway Interface, you
> are left with a server that primarily pumps bytes back and forth
> between the client and the script. Tomcat has all kinds of moving
> parts that make it possible to do nice things, but those moving parts
> have a cost.
>
> (It's worth noting that I believe such costs are worth it. That's why
> I live in the container-based world instead of writing Perl- or
> PHP-based applications.)
>
> Want to deploy a single "Hello, World!" CGI script? No problem. Just
> drop "#!/bin/sh\n\necho "Hello, World!" into a .cgi file in your
> document root and tell Apache httpd it's okay to run it.
>
> Want to deploy a single "Hello, World!" script on Tomcat? Well, first
> you have to know where the auto-deployment directory is (hint: it's
> not a document root), and then you have to create a directory in
> there, and then drop a .jsp file in there. The good news is that
> "Hello, World!" is a valid JSP file without any of the fluff you need
> to make a shell script run. But the small amount of orientation
> required just to get the point of dropping text into a file can be
> confusing.
>
> Once the almighty "container" is involved, there is pressure to make
> it do more things. Sessions. Replication. Websockets. These are all
> very good and very useful things, but it further complicates the
> scenario. It's just a tough world to jump into with little to no planning.
>
> - -chris
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--
Luis Felipe Hernandez
Re: [OT] Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Christopher Schultz <ch...@christopherschultz.net>.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
Neven,
On 11/20/13, 11:48 AM, Neven Cvetkovic wrote:
> Ultimately, CGI is a very old technology that had its own share of
> performance (and security) problems. Usually, CGI scripts were
> replaced with superior Java Servlet technology (or some other
> better technology) and hence the need for Tomcat application server
> (servlet container). Hopefully, the rest of the mailing list
> members share my sentiments about the CGI :)
- -0
The only thing that really makes CGI "outdated" is that CGI itself
didn't have an API... or if you could call it an API, it was very
basic. It basically said "you get the query string in a big blob and
you can read standard input if you want to get the entity body". Then
everyone set to work writing their own custom parsing routines. I
remember copy/pasting stuff in Perl way back in 1994 and now having
any idea what the code actually did.
These days, you can pretty much write a Perl script and say "use CGI;"
and it's just magic, safe, etc. CGI has come a long way.
The last remaining problem is really that of performance: the CGI
model launches a new process for each request (even though you can
cheat a bit using things like mod_perl, etc.) and so there is a
performance hit right there. If you want to keep information between
requests, you have no choice but to write it to some form of
non-volatile storage (as far as the "application" is concerned).
RDBMS, flat file, etc.
More recent systems (I hesitate to say "modern" because it implies
that they are better simply because they are newer, and that the older
methodologies are simply worse by definition) are supported by much
more complicated software, APIs, etc.
Note that container-based systems like Tomcat have their own
performance problems: they have to manage all the stuff that they are
... well, required to support. If you peel-away all of the stuff that
Apache httpd provides *aside* from the Common Gateway Interface, you
are left with a server that primarily pumps bytes back and forth
between the client and the script. Tomcat has all kinds of moving
parts that make it possible to do nice things, but those moving parts
have a cost.
(It's worth noting that I believe such costs are worth it. That's why
I live in the container-based world instead of writing Perl- or
PHP-based applications.)
Want to deploy a single "Hello, World!" CGI script? No problem. Just
drop "#!/bin/sh\n\necho "Hello, World!" into a .cgi file in your
document root and tell Apache httpd it's okay to run it.
Want to deploy a single "Hello, World!" script on Tomcat? Well, first
you have to know where the auto-deployment directory is (hint: it's
not a document root), and then you have to create a directory in
there, and then drop a .jsp file in there. The good news is that
"Hello, World!" is a valid JSP file without any of the fluff you need
to make a shell script run. But the small amount of orientation
required just to get the point of dropping text into a file can be
confusing.
Once the almighty "container" is involved, there is pressure to make
it do more things. Sessions. Replication. Websockets. These are all
very good and very useful things, but it further complicates the
scenario. It's just a tough world to jump into with little to no planning.
- -chris
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Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Neven Cvetkovic <ne...@gmail.com>.
On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 12:21 AM, Felipe <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Neven,
> First of all, I'd like to thank you for all the help. I can say I have
> learned a great deal through this experience. To clarify, the choice of
> using tomcat for this was not mine. I am trying to lend a hand to a
> professor of mine. This specific exercise is in his Unix class. For some
> reason he thinks tomcat or at least every time he mentioned this exercise
> to me he made reference to apache tomcat, is meant to be used in the
> exercise. The exercise is on hosting a web page with perl scripts/cgi. So
> in his instructions it's clearly using apache on Ubuntu. So he mentioned to
>
Felipe, just wanted to make sure you are aware, there are two often
confused Apache projects:
Apache HTTP Server (webserver) - also referred just as 'Apache' -
http://httpd.apache.org/
Apache Tomcat (Java appserver) - also referred just as 'Tomcat' -
http://tomcat.apache.org/
Searching online, this seems like a very typical CGI programming project
many universities use in their curriculum. Also, it seems the examples come
from "Guide to UNIX Using Linux" by Michael Palmer (ISBN: 978-1-4188-3723-5)
Thus, Tomcat is not the best web server to serve your CGI scripts, this is
usually done using Apache (httpd server) - as Konstantin pointed out -
using Tomcat will not give you the most optimal performance.
However, if you insist working with Tomcat, here's how you do it:
(Thanks Konstantin for pointing that out) You probably should update
web.xml of your application and not the global
CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml...
You application then looks like this:
/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/webapps/FelipeAppWithCgi:
META-INF/context.xml (to make your application privileged)
WEB-INF/web.xml (to define servlet and servlet mapping)
WEB-INF/cgi/projects.cgi (your cgi script)
WEB-INF/cgi/subparseform.lib (your cgi library)
ProjectAnalysis.html (your html form)
index.html (your welcome page that includes)
Here's the dropbox link I created that works with Tomcat:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/c32ecuryj2mgb6i/-eC0FQOCbF
There are two ways to deploy it:
1) As a unpackaged folder "FelipeAppWithCgi" - you need to get all the
files and directory structure
2) As a packaged WAR file "FelipeAppWithCgi.war" (WAR is essentially a zip
archive with certain directory structure)
Ultimately, CGI is a very old technology that had its own share of
performance (and security) problems. Usually, CGI scripts were replaced
with superior Java Servlet technology (or some other better technology) and
hence the need for Tomcat application server (servlet container).
Hopefully, the rest of the mailing list members share my sentiments about
the CGI :)
me that he was having trouble with the exercise and asked if I maybe I had
> any idea. I'm not in his class, but I love working in linux and more
> importantly helping out wherever I can. So I took it upon myself to try to
> learn the material in this exercise and re-write the instructions, but now
> -once again thanks for all the help
>
No worries. Glad we could shed some light.
Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Felipe <fe...@gmail.com>.
Neven,
First of all, I'd like to thank you for all the help. I can say I have
learned a great deal through this experience. To clarify, the choice of
using tomcat for this was not mine. I am trying to lend a hand to a
professor of mine. This specific exercise is in his Unix class. For some
reason he thinks tomcat or at least every time he mentioned this exercise
to me he made reference to apache tomcat, is meant to be used in the
exercise. The exercise is on hosting a web page with perl scripts/cgi. So
in his instructions it's clearly using apache on Ubuntu. So he mentioned to
me that he was having trouble with the exercise and asked if I maybe I had
any idea. I'm not in his class, but I love working in linux and more
importantly helping out wherever I can. So I took it upon myself to try to
learn the material in this exercise and re-write the instructions, but now
I see there was some confusion on his part.But thank you for pointing me in
the right direction. * I did not package the cgi script in WAR file, this
is most likely the reason it is not working. If you don't mind I would like
to work on your JSP code and see if maybe I could write to separate guides
for his class, one for the cgi scipt on apache and another for tomcat using
JSP. One more thing:
"Your ProjectAnalysis.html will have the following form action URL, e.g.
<form action="http://localhost:8080/YOURAPP/cgi-bin/project.cgi"
method="post">
</form>?"
since it was an example I assume I have to list the whole path for the
project .cgi :
<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="
http://localhost:8080/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/webapps/web
/WEB-INF/cgi-bin/project.cgi">
-once again thanks for all the help
On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 11:09 PM, Neven Cvetkovic <neven.cvetkovic@gmail.com
> wrote:
> Felipe,
>
> As noted in the web.xml comments, in order to make cgi-servlet working, you
> need to package cgi scripts with your web application (e.g. yourapp.war):
>
> "Common Gateway Includes (CGI) processing servlet, which supports execution
> of external applications that conform to the CGI spec requirements.
> Typically, this servlet is mapped to the URL pattern "/cgi-bin/*", which
> means that any CGI applications that are executed must be present within
> the web application..."
>
>
> So, if you deployed your webapp as
> /home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/webapps/YOURAPP
>
>
> You will need the following files in your YOURAPP folder:
>
> WEB-INF/cgi/project.cgi
> WEB-INF/cgi/subparseform.lib
> ProjectAnalysis.html
>
> Your ProjectAnalysis.html will have the following form action URL, e.g.
>
> <form action="http://localhost:8080/YOURAPP/cgi-bin/project.cgi"
> method="post">
> ...
> </form>
>
>
> Make sure that both <servlet> and <servlet-mapping> are uncommented.
>
> Read more details about CGI support here:
> http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/cgi-howto.html
>
>
> Now, more important questions for you:
>
> Why are you using Tomcat and CGI support in Tomcat? If you are not
> deploying Java applications, what's the point of using Tomcat, why not just
> use Apache web server (httpd)?
>
> Why are you using subparseform.lib? It would be so much cleaner to use
> JSP+Servlet code for that ... provided you have nice JSP/Java development
> environment, etc...
>
> The easiest to develop (also "terrible" way to do it) is to use just JSPs
> and code all your logic, calculations etc... in JSP itself.
>
> For example, e.g.
>
>
> CATALINA_HOME/webapps/YOURAPP:
>
> ProjectAnalysis.html
> projects.jsp
>
>
> ----begin projects.jsp----
> <html>
> <body>
> <h1>Results</h1>
> <%
>
> String projcost = request.getParameter("projcost");
> String projects = request.getParameter("projects");
> String revenue = request.getParameter("revenue");
>
> double projcostValue = Double.parseDouble(projcost);
> double projectsValue = Double.parseDouble(projects);
> double revenueValue = Double.parseDouble(revenue);
>
> double average = projcostValue / projectsValue;
> double grossprofit = revenueValue - projcostValue;
>
> %>
>
> <p>Project Cost Last Year was $projcost dollars.</p>
>
> <p>We completed <%= projectsValue %> projects during the year. That works
> out to an average of <%= average %> cost per project.</p>
>
> <p>Our annual Project Revenue was <%= revenueValue %> dollars. We made a
> gross profit of <%= grossprofit %> dollars</p>
> </body>
> </html>
>
> ----end projects.jsp----
>
>
> Or something like that ... now, I don't guarantee for the correctness of
> the JSP code, since I just typed it here and not actually tried it out and
> tested, but you get the idea...
>
> You really should ask yourself - why Tomcat and not some other simpler
> webserver?
>
> Good luck!
> n.
>
--
Luis Felipe Hernandez
Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Neven Cvetkovic <ne...@gmail.com>.
Felipe,
As noted in the web.xml comments, in order to make cgi-servlet working, you
need to package cgi scripts with your web application (e.g. yourapp.war):
"Common Gateway Includes (CGI) processing servlet, which supports execution
of external applications that conform to the CGI spec requirements.
Typically, this servlet is mapped to the URL pattern "/cgi-bin/*", which
means that any CGI applications that are executed must be present within
the web application..."
So, if you deployed your webapp as
/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/webapps/YOURAPP
You will need the following files in your YOURAPP folder:
WEB-INF/cgi/project.cgi
WEB-INF/cgi/subparseform.lib
ProjectAnalysis.html
Your ProjectAnalysis.html will have the following form action URL, e.g.
<form action="http://localhost:8080/YOURAPP/cgi-bin/project.cgi"
method="post">
...
</form>
Make sure that both <servlet> and <servlet-mapping> are uncommented.
Read more details about CGI support here:
http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/cgi-howto.html
Now, more important questions for you:
Why are you using Tomcat and CGI support in Tomcat? If you are not
deploying Java applications, what's the point of using Tomcat, why not just
use Apache web server (httpd)?
Why are you using subparseform.lib? It would be so much cleaner to use
JSP+Servlet code for that ... provided you have nice JSP/Java development
environment, etc...
The easiest to develop (also "terrible" way to do it) is to use just JSPs
and code all your logic, calculations etc... in JSP itself.
For example, e.g.
CATALINA_HOME/webapps/YOURAPP:
ProjectAnalysis.html
projects.jsp
----begin projects.jsp----
<html>
<body>
<h1>Results</h1>
<%
String projcost = request.getParameter("projcost");
String projects = request.getParameter("projects");
String revenue = request.getParameter("revenue");
double projcostValue = Double.parseDouble(projcost);
double projectsValue = Double.parseDouble(projects);
double revenueValue = Double.parseDouble(revenue);
double average = projcostValue / projectsValue;
double grossprofit = revenueValue - projcostValue;
%>
<p>Project Cost Last Year was $projcost dollars.</p>
<p>We completed <%= projectsValue %> projects during the year. That works
out to an average of <%= average %> cost per project.</p>
<p>Our annual Project Revenue was <%= revenueValue %> dollars. We made a
gross profit of <%= grossprofit %> dollars</p>
</body>
</html>
----end projects.jsp----
Or something like that ... now, I don't guarantee for the correctness of
the JSP code, since I just typed it here and not actually tried it out and
tested, but you get the idea...
You really should ask yourself - why Tomcat and not some other simpler
webserver?
Good luck!
n.
Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Felipe <fe...@gmail.com>.
Thank you Neven,
So, basically I've tried your suggestion, but I tried it again to see if
anything would change, but I got this error:
*type* Status report
*message*
*/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/web/cgi-bin/project.cgi*
*description* *The requested resource is not available.*
Could it be that the web folder should be somewhere else in the
tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5?
On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 9:09 PM, Neven Cvetkovic
<ne...@gmail.com>wrote:
> Felipe your form action seem to be wrong. Nothing is listening on port 80
> as notwd in your html.
>
> It should be more like http://localhost:8080/...
>
> Depending how that default servlet has been mapped to cgi programs.
>
> Hopefully that will get you going :)
> On Nov 20, 2013 3:01 AM, "Felipe" <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > I am running Manjaro Linux (0.8.7) using the linux 3.4.69 kernel on a
> Dell
> > XPS m1330 laptop. I am trying to run a sample webpage that uses perl and
> > cgi to handle a form.
> > These are the steps I took:
> >
> > * wget
> >
> >
> http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.0-RC5/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> > * tar xvzf apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> > * mkdir ~/tomcat
> > * sudo mv apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5 ~/tomcat
> > * sudo vi ~/.bashrc
> > * append export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk
> > * append export CATALINA_HOME=~/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5
> > * run $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
> >
> > I was able to pull up the tomcat control panel, I then edited the web.xml
> > file. I uncommented the cgi servlet block as well as the cgi-servlet
> > mapping block. I also changed path prefix:
> > <init-param>
> > <param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name>
> > <param-value>WEB-INF/cgi-bin/*</param-value>
> > </init-param>
> > <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup>
> > </servlet>
> >
> > as well as created a user and password in the tomcat-users.xml, so i
> could
> > use the manager GUI.
> >
> > I proceeded to create a directory (web) in my home folder
> > and created a sub-directory (cgi-bin). I have 3 files that make up the
> web
> > page.
> > the html file is as follows:
> > GNU nano 2.2.6 File: ProjectAnalysis.html
> >
> >
> > <!- Program Name: projest.html ->
> >
> > <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Project Analysis</TITLE></HEAD>
> > <BODY>
> >
> > <H2>Average Profit per Project Calculation</H2>
> > <FORM METHOD=POST
> > ACTION="
> >
> >
> http://localhost/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/web/cgi-bin/projest.cgi
> > ">
> > Total cost of projects last year? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projcost SIZE=10>
> > Number of Projects? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projects SIZE=10>
> > Project revenue received? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=revenue SIZE=10>
> > <HR><INPUT TYPE=submit NAME=submit VALUE=Submit>
> > <INPUT TYPE=reset NAME=reset VALUE="Start over">
> > </FORM>
> > </BODY>
> > </HTML>
> >
> > the .cgi file is as follows:
> > #!/usr/bin/perl
> >
> > # Program name: projest.cgi
> >
> > require "subparseform.lib";
> >
> > &Parse_Form;
> > $projcost = $formdata{'projcost'};
> > $projects = $formdata{'projects'};
> > $revenue = $formdata{'revenue'};
> >
> > $average = $projcost / $projects;
> > $average = sprintf("%.2f", $average);
> > $grossprofit = $revenue - $projcost;
> >
> > print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
> > print "<P>Project Cost Last Year was $projcost dollars.";
> > print "<P>We completed $projects projects during the year.
> > That works out to an average of $average cost per project.";
> > print "<P>Our annual Project Revenue was $revenue dollars.
> > We made a gross profit of $grossprofit dollars";
> >
> > the subparse.lib file:
> > GNU nano 2.2.6 File: subparseform.lib
> >
> >
> > sub Parse_Form {
> > if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET') {
> > @pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
> > } elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
> > read (STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
> > @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
> >
> > if ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}) {
> > @getpairs =split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
> > push(@pairs,@getpairs);
> > }
> > } else {
> > print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
> > print "<P>Use Post or Get";
> > }
> >
> > foreach $pair (@pairs) {
> > ($key, $value) = split (/=/, $pair);
> > $key =~ tr/+/ /;
> > $key =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",
> hex($1))/eg;
> > $value =~ tr/+/ /;
> > $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",
> > hex($1))/eg;
> >
> > $value =~s/<!--(.|\n)*-->//g;
> >
> > if ($formdata{$key}) {
> > $formdata{$key} .= ", $value";
> > } else {
> > $formdata{$key} = $value;
> > }
> > }
> > }
> > 1;
> >
> >
> > I have manually open the html file from firefox's menu, and I when I
> submit
> > data into the farm, I get an unable to connect to server error. I'm not
> > sure where to go from here, I believe the folder(s) for the web page
> should
> > be in the tomcat/apache... folder , I'm just not sure where.
> > I would appreciate any help on this specific problem. Thanks in advance
> >
>
--
Luis Felipe Hernandez
Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Neven Cvetkovic <ne...@gmail.com>.
Felipe your form action seem to be wrong. Nothing is listening on port 80
as notwd in your html.
It should be more like http://localhost:8080/...
Depending how that default servlet has been mapped to cgi programs.
Hopefully that will get you going :)
On Nov 20, 2013 3:01 AM, "Felipe" <fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am running Manjaro Linux (0.8.7) using the linux 3.4.69 kernel on a Dell
> XPS m1330 laptop. I am trying to run a sample webpage that uses perl and
> cgi to handle a form.
> These are the steps I took:
>
> * wget
>
> http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.0-RC5/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> * tar xvzf apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> * mkdir ~/tomcat
> * sudo mv apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5 ~/tomcat
> * sudo vi ~/.bashrc
> * append export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk
> * append export CATALINA_HOME=~/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5
> * run $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
>
> I was able to pull up the tomcat control panel, I then edited the web.xml
> file. I uncommented the cgi servlet block as well as the cgi-servlet
> mapping block. I also changed path prefix:
> <init-param>
> <param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name>
> <param-value>WEB-INF/cgi-bin/*</param-value>
> </init-param>
> <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup>
> </servlet>
>
> as well as created a user and password in the tomcat-users.xml, so i could
> use the manager GUI.
>
> I proceeded to create a directory (web) in my home folder
> and created a sub-directory (cgi-bin). I have 3 files that make up the web
> page.
> the html file is as follows:
> GNU nano 2.2.6 File: ProjectAnalysis.html
>
>
> <!- Program Name: projest.html ->
>
> <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Project Analysis</TITLE></HEAD>
> <BODY>
>
> <H2>Average Profit per Project Calculation</H2>
> <FORM METHOD=POST
> ACTION="
>
> http://localhost/home/luis/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5/web/cgi-bin/projest.cgi
> ">
> Total cost of projects last year? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projcost SIZE=10>
> Number of Projects? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=projects SIZE=10>
> Project revenue received? <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=revenue SIZE=10>
> <HR><INPUT TYPE=submit NAME=submit VALUE=Submit>
> <INPUT TYPE=reset NAME=reset VALUE="Start over">
> </FORM>
> </BODY>
> </HTML>
>
> the .cgi file is as follows:
> #!/usr/bin/perl
>
> # Program name: projest.cgi
>
> require "subparseform.lib";
>
> &Parse_Form;
> $projcost = $formdata{'projcost'};
> $projects = $formdata{'projects'};
> $revenue = $formdata{'revenue'};
>
> $average = $projcost / $projects;
> $average = sprintf("%.2f", $average);
> $grossprofit = $revenue - $projcost;
>
> print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
> print "<P>Project Cost Last Year was $projcost dollars.";
> print "<P>We completed $projects projects during the year.
> That works out to an average of $average cost per project.";
> print "<P>Our annual Project Revenue was $revenue dollars.
> We made a gross profit of $grossprofit dollars";
>
> the subparse.lib file:
> GNU nano 2.2.6 File: subparseform.lib
>
>
> sub Parse_Form {
> if ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'GET') {
> @pairs = split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
> } elsif ($ENV{'REQUEST_METHOD'} eq 'POST') {
> read (STDIN, $buffer, $ENV{'CONTENT_LENGTH'});
> @pairs = split(/&/, $buffer);
>
> if ($ENV{'QUERY_STRING'}) {
> @getpairs =split(/&/, $ENV{'QUERY_STRING'});
> push(@pairs,@getpairs);
> }
> } else {
> print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
> print "<P>Use Post or Get";
> }
>
> foreach $pair (@pairs) {
> ($key, $value) = split (/=/, $pair);
> $key =~ tr/+/ /;
> $key =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg;
> $value =~ tr/+/ /;
> $value =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",
> hex($1))/eg;
>
> $value =~s/<!--(.|\n)*-->//g;
>
> if ($formdata{$key}) {
> $formdata{$key} .= ", $value";
> } else {
> $formdata{$key} = $value;
> }
> }
> }
> 1;
>
>
> I have manually open the html file from firefox's menu, and I when I submit
> data into the farm, I get an unable to connect to server error. I'm not
> sure where to go from here, I believe the folder(s) for the web page should
> be in the tomcat/apache... folder , I'm just not sure where.
> I would appreciate any help on this specific problem. Thanks in advance
>
Re: Issue with cgi/perl webpage
Posted by Konstantin Kolinko <kn...@gmail.com>.
2013/11/20 Felipe <fe...@gmail.com>:
> Hello,
>
> I am running Manjaro Linux (0.8.7) using the linux 3.4.69 kernel on a Dell
> XPS m1330 laptop. I am trying to run a sample webpage that uses perl and
> cgi to handle a form.
> These are the steps I took:
>
> * wget
> http://mirrors.sonic.net/apache/tomcat/tomcat-8/v8.0.0-RC5/bin/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> * tar xvzf apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5.tar.gz
> * mkdir ~/tomcat
> * sudo mv apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5 ~/tomcat
> * sudo vi ~/.bashrc
> * append export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk
> * append export CATALINA_HOME=~/tomcat/apache-tomcat-8.0.0-RC5
> * run $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh
>
> I was able to pull up the tomcat control panel, I then edited the web.xml
> file. I uncommented the cgi servlet block as well as the cgi-servlet
> mapping block. I also changed path prefix:
> <init-param>
> <param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name>
> <param-value>WEB-INF/cgi-bin/*</param-value>
> </init-param>
> <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup>
> </servlet>
1. conf/web.xml provides defaults to all web applications that are
deployed on Tomcat.
Instead of uncommenting the servlet and servlet-mapping there you
would better copy them into WEB-INF/web.xml file of your own web
application.
2. Your web application (aka context) must be marked as "privileged".
Non-privileged web applications are not allowed to use CgiServlet.
This servlet poses a security risk and thus this additional protection
is in place.
3. While it is technically possible to use Perl with Apache Tomcat (as
well as to start external programs from within Java), using it with
Apache HTTPD would provide better performance.
Best regards,
Konstantin Kolinko
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