Subj : Re: CGI questiuon
To   : Scott Adams
From : Jasen Betts
Date : Tue Dec 09 2003 07:01 pm

Hi Scott.

28-Nov-03 04:57:18, Scott Adams wrote to Jasen Betts


 JB>> I want to serve a binary files to an HTTP client (like wget) from
 JB>> a CGI script, is that posssible?

 JB>> The plan is to have one/some of my machines requesting files over
 JB>> the network and have the CGI script on the server coordinating
 JB>> the cd-draw to change discs depending on the path the script
 JB>> gets.

 SA> There could be some serious security issues if its done wrong for
 SA> the network.  I'm not a network person myself so couldn't help you
 SA> on the details but what id o know if a script is involved just
 SA> have to be very very careful :)

I've got the CGI working now but I wimped out of using perl and ended up
doing it in about 30 lines of bash, it doesn't do any URL traslaition or
anything fancy, it just grabs a CD name from $PATH_INFO in the environment
and the filename from the query string (command-line)

spits out the CD if it's not the one it wants and uses  "wall" to hassle
anyone nearby (IOW me) to feed it the apropriate disk.
and once satisfied responds with a "location" message that points the
server (apache at the moment) at a symlink to the cdrom drive's mount point

so far "the network" is three PCs within arm's reach of me but one of
them's going into the spare room later this month.

I'm not planning on opening port 80 to the world for a while yet. and if I
do I'll put an IP address check near the start of the script and give
foreigners a 404

 hmm speaking of 404s... you get to give a text (or html etc) message for 
interactive
 users to read... I wonder if I could grab the output of

   /usr/games/fortune bofh

   (which emits BOFH excuses for computer problems)

and insert that into the error page :)

 -=> Bye <=-

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