Help/Guidance to set-up my website to use PHP

[#1]

Hi, I hope someone may be able to help me. I’ve had my own personal website when I worked for myself. I used to use part of this to support my hobby of running a personal weather station www.pc-king.co.uk/weather . I’m retired so now only use the site to support my weather station, I use 123reg for my hosting but they are now charging me so much that I can no longer support or justify the cost.

I’ve been with Plusnet over 20 years and remembered that I have some legacy webspace which I have now set-up with my site www.pc-king.me.uk (or you can use www.pcking.plus.com ) which seems to be working OK apart for pages which use php . The trouble is that as it’s a legacy offering there is very little help available so, whilst I know that I need to use the ccgi for php I’m at a loss to know how to make this happen. If you take a look at this page from my paid for hosting  http://www.pc-king.co.uk/weather/climate.php and then the equivalent from the Plusnet hosting http://www.pc-king.me.uk/climate.php  you will see the difference. So long story short, what do I need to do? Please do bear in mind that I’m now 69 years old so my brain is not quite so nimble 😉

[#2]

@nking This https://community.plus.net/t5/Library/A-Beginners-Guide-to-PHP/ba-p/1322539 is quite old but may be useful as a start, although you need to take it with a pinch of salt as ISTR that access to the ccgi space changed a few years ago. I'm not sure there's that many people still around here that understand how the ccgi space works.

[#3]

Thank you for responding and I will take a look to see if it helps. As you say, there are few people around that can help. I keep my fingers crossed that maybe someone is running a site that uses ccgi and can put me straight. I think someone like Bob Pullen would be very helpful about now...... Thanks again

[#4]

---

@nking wrote:

I’ve been with Plusnet over 20 years and remembered that I have some legacy webspace which I have now set-up with my site www.pc-king.me.uk (or you can use www.pcking.plus.com ...

---

That's the Homepages web server which has no support for dynamic content/PHP etc.

The only way you'd be able to run a PHP website is if you have access to the legacy CGI servers. I can't check at the moment as I'm not on the corporate network but one way to establish would be to try browsing to http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com

If that 404's, then you're probably out of luck.

[#5]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for replying.

I have been able to log into the cgi webspace but once there I’m at a loss as to what I need to do. With my paid for hosting, it was quite simple, I just loaded everything via ftp and it worked. I appreciate that it’s not so simple with the plusnet space and that the php element needs to be in the ccgi side but that’s where my understanding stops. I realise you no longer work in this support area but if you are able to help or point me in the right direction that would be great. I’m afraid I haven’t got the skills I used to have…..

[#6]

---

@bobpullen wrote:

The only way you'd be able to run a PHP website is if you have access to the legacy CGI servers ... one way to establish would be to try browsing to http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com

---

---

@nking wrote:

I have been able to log into the cgi webspace but once there I’m at a loss as to what I need to do. With my paid for hosting, it was quite simple, I just loaded everything via ftp and it worked. I appreciate that it’s not so simple with the plusnet space and that the php element needs to be in the ccgi side but that’s where my understanding stops.

---

@nking  Not sure I fully understand the issue here, but if you are able to log into the cgi webspace that assumes you must have the (current) username and password for ccgi.

To upload a php file requires ftp to the ccgi server. The username setting will depend on where your website was originally hosted on homepages (force9.co.uk or plus.com, I think).

Settings:

Address: ccgi.plus.net

Port: 21

Username: ccgi.username.force9.co.uk

Once logged in, the php file would go into the 'public' directory - 'public' would not form part of the address for calling the file (much as 'htdocs' does not, on homepages), so a sample call-up address (link) once the php file has been uploaded, might be http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com/index.php

... however.  Both http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com and http://cgi.pcking.plus.com (the latter address being on the screenshot you enclosed in the post above) both generate the message "server IP address could not be found".

Whereas if the ccgi address was 'current' (but without an index.php file or similar) the message 'Not Authorized to View This Page [CFN #0004]' might be expected.

So it's not entirely clear whether you actually have ccgi access or not (?)  If you do, then uploading files with ftp should be relatively straightforward, hopefully.

If not, you might perhaps wish to transfer your hosting to somewhere like Mythic Beasts (£2.50/month, includes php -type facilities, free https addresses, however-many domain-names/websites you can accommodate within the 5Gb allowance, low-cost co.uk -type domain renewals and afaik no charge for additional mailboxes).

HTH

.

[#7]

Hi Penny,

Thank you for your response.

I have been able to FTP to my ccgi  space and and have checked via the Plusnet cgi login that the php file is in the public directory. The main problem seems to be that http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com isn't available and requires someone from Plusnet to sort the cgi service out their side. 

I don't know if they will pick this up from the forum or if I need to call customer service direct, I realise that there is likely to be an issue because there are few people left that understand how it works..... hopefully Bob Pullen will be able to get someone onto it 🤞

[#8]

---

@nking wrote:

The main problem seems to be that http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com isn't available and requires someone from Plusnet to sort the cgi service out their side. 

---

I've made a change this side. Give things another go tomorrow.

[#9]

Hi Bob,

It now works 🥳, thanks for sorting this out for me. I've been able to run this php file from either links http://cgi.pcking.plus.com/metar-display.php  or  http://ccgi.pcking.plus.com/metar-display.php  it doesn't seem to matter if I use cgi or ccgi ?

I take it that all I have to do is put the link to the cgi site into my pc-king.me.uk html code?

Thanks again for your support

Neil