cgi form email script not working (404)

[#1]

Hi Bob,
Can you manage our expectations please with an anticipation of by when the matter will be considered and intentions decided?
Thanks,
Kevin

To others looking at a means of gathering structured information from a web-page form, you might find embedding a Google Form in an iFrame might work for you.  Not quite the same, but workable!

[#2]

Quote from: Townman

Can you manage our expectations please with an anticipation of by when the matter will be considered and intentions decided?

I was hoping to have had some movement by now if I'm honest Kevin

Quote from: Townman

To others looking at a means of gathering structured information from a web-page form, you might find embedding a Google Form in an iFrame might work for you.  Not quite the same, but workable!

Not an entirely unreasonable suggestion. Thanks for the tip

[#3]

I would like to add my support for this functionality to be made available again, what Townman/Kevin has mentioned is spot on, amongst others too. I would add, that the length of time, the continued outage, lack of clarity/notification over this issue is very poor, it continues to not be dealt with at all professionally..

[#4]

Quote from: Bob

Quote from: Townman Can you manage our expectations please with an anticipation of by when the matter will be considered and intentions decided? I was hoping to have had some movement by now if I'm honest Kevin

It's not looking like we're going to be in a position to re-factor/engineer the scripts without scheduling some time on our roadmap. To do this requires a certain degree of justification, and at present I'm led to believe that there are ~60 people making use of these scripts so I've a suspicion I'm going to struggle
I'm waiting on more precise figures, which we can then use to weigh up our options. It's looking like it's boiling down to either providing customers an alternative hosting environment (we've only really the CGI platform, which wouldn't be without problems) or suggesting some third party alternatives (suggestions welcomed).
I recognise that this is less than ideal, but we need to look at the number of people using these scripts versus the volume of work it's going to require to satisfy the concerns around their use. Unfortunately the latter far out-weighs the former.

[#5]

As has been said by a number of people, but viewing that equation would depend on whether you're an established user of the service, maybe over numerous years, 10 years for us and so initially saw it as a unique selling point and an integral and valuable part of the PlusNet service offering, or whether you view service/support as an oncost..

[#6]

If you do have Plusnet CGI space, this is how to set up Matt's formmail.pl script for use either from your cgi space or another website:

• Get formmail.pl from Matt's script archive http://www.scriptarchive.com/download.cgi?s=formmail


• Upload formmail.pl to your public/CGI-BIN folder, and set permission rwx--x--x


• Edit the file to set @referers and @recipients as per Matt's documentation; eg.

@referers = ('mydomain.co.uk');
@recipients = ('^me\@mydomain\.co\.uk');

• In your form page, set the form properties

method="post" action="http://ccgi.yourname.plus.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.pl"

Seems to work ok!

[#7]

Interesting post, thanks. I can't login to my cgi space, I also know little about setting rights, I also had a picture library, all of which has disappeared.. PlusNet will have to come to some sort of a conclusion, as to whether, of the population who used the scripts before, they either go their own way, or seek out one or a number of other options, all potentially carrying support costs, even if it's as minimal as monitoring/providing services such as these..

[#8]

Quote from: gandb

If you do have Plusnet CGI space, this is how to set up Matt's formmail.pl script for use either from your cgi space or another website: Get formmail.pl from Matt's script archive http://www.scriptarchive.com/download.cgi?s=formmail Upload formmail.pl to your public/CGI-BIN folder, and set permission rwx--x--x Edit the file to set @referers and @recipients as per Matt's documentation; eg. @referers = ('mydomain.co.uk'); @recipients = ('^me\@mydomain\.co\.uk'); In your form page, set the form properties method="post" action="http://ccgi.yourname.plus.com/cgi-bin/FormMail.pl" Seems to work ok!

When I click submit on my form I am getting the text content of FormMail.pl - have set perms as above? Can anyone post a working FormMail.pl?
Or at least their config section? I have noticed that CGI-BIN has to be under public and upper case.
What is the parth to Perl / Sendmail for example - Thanks!

[#9]

Added thee two lines to the end of .htaccess in the root of the my cgi space
Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
Using the filemanager from the portal
Now I am getting an error message from the script so it looks like perl is
now processing the script ok

[#10]

In your FormMail.pl  config section there is little to change
@referers          = qw(www.uraccount.plus.com);
@allow_mail_to    = qw(you@uraccount.plus.com);
The referer is the url of your page that has the form on it - hint: no need to wrap url in ' '
mail_to is the email address that your form results will be sent to hint: no need to wrap address in ' '

[#11]

Quote from: cpcnw

@allow_mail_to    = qw(you@uraccount.plus.com);

We must be using different versions - there's @no allow_mail_to in the current version (1.93).
Also, Matt's documentation at http://www.scriptarchive.com/readme/formmail.html#recipients does suggest escaping the @ and .'s in the email address

[#12]

@Bob,
Have I become totally confused here?  I thought these scripts (notably Matt's form mail) had been taken down as they were viewed as being insecure?  If this is the case is it unwise allowing / suggesting / recommending that individuals who have cgi space host this service there?
Or is the problem something different?
Kevin

[#13]

I have been a PlusNet user since 2003, and have used the FormMail scripts for practically that long too. Now it has stopped working, and I only discovered that when a user of one of my websites reported the error. OK - PlusNet have apologised for not letting me (all of us?) know, but then telling us that the issue has a low priority is just not good enough. We have already suffered serious inconvenience when direct login to the CGI/CCGI servers was disallowed a few years ago, and never restored.
So, on to this issue:
1. I have added Matt's FormMail script to a /public/CGI-BIN directory, amending it in accordance with the advice given by users on this thread.
ISSUE: when I attempt to use the mailform, I see displayed the text of the FormMail script, as described by cpcnw.
So:
2. I looked for an .htaccess file everywhere in my CGI space and found none.
  When I created one, I could not editied it (wrong filetype), so I uploaded an .htaccess file with the two suggested line.
Then:
I now have a server error. No error number just a declaration that a server error has occurred.
So - can anyone tell me:
Should I have .htaccess  anywhere in my CGI space?
Why can I not edit the file in File Manager as mentioned by others?
Can anyoine offer me a next step?
Thanks to anyone who answers!
Ken.

[#14]

Hi Ken..
It was 2004 for us, agree totally with your first paragraph, appalling.
"Thanks to anyone who answers!" - is about the measure of the degree which PlusNet seems to take in respect of support, it seems. Sadly, I can offer no help on your question, but just to let you know that I and I'm sure many others, share your frustration - I can't recommend PlusNet anymore on this issue and support any longer..

[#15]

Using File Manager for editing files is something I avoid unless I'm desperate. My impression is that it puts Windows style (\r\n) line endings on files. Generally they still work but I think they could be troublesome in .htaccess.
If you really have no .htaccess files in your ccgi webspace, not even in your webspace root directory '/', then cgi scripts need to go in the root /cgi-bin folder (not /public/cgi-bin or /public/CGI-BIN).
Try putting the following helloworld.pl script in /cgi-bin and setting permissions (chmod) to 755 to make it executable
[code=helloworld.pl]
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# Send an html header
print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";
# Send html tags and content
print "<html>\n";
print "<head><title>Hello World!</title></head>\n";
print "<body><h1>Hello world</h1></body>\n";
print "</html>\n";[/code]
Then browse to it at http://ccgi.yourusername.plus.com/cgi-bin/helloworld.pl; does it print "Hello world"?
David