CGI Programs

CGI, or Common Gateway Interface, provides a means for a website to have dynamic, program-generated content on a web page. CGI programs can interact with the user through the use of input fields and can provide different data based on the information returned. CGI programs can be written in nearly any language, though it is most common for them to be written in Perl, PHP, Python, Java, C, and bash or other shell scripting languages. The CGI Programs module provides an interface to the global CGI options of Apache (Figure 7-6).

Figure 7-6: Apache CGI Programs

CGI Script log

Is the log directory for the CGI script error log file. If none is given, no log is created. Edits the ScriptLog directive found at [http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_cgi.html#scriptlog].

Maximum logged post data size

Data from a PUT or POST request to a CGI script that is written to the error log file can be limited in size, because PUT and POST requests can be extremely large. The default is 1024 bytes. This option correlates to the ScriptLogBuffer [http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_cgi.html#scriptlogbuffer] directive.

Maximum CGI log post size

Limits the size of the CGI script log file. When the log file exceeds this size, no more errors will be written to the log file. Corresponds to the ScriptLogLength [http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_cgi.html#scriptloglength] directive.

Variables set based on browser type

If the server should set some environment variables differently depending on the client browser type, it is possible to enter that data here. This option edits the BrowserMatch [http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_setenvif.html#BrowserMatch] directive. Note that the mod_setenvif and mod_browser modules should be loaded when using these features.

Variable set based on request headers

Allows you to set environment variables based on attributes of the request. This corresponds to the SetEnvIf [http://www.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_setenvif.html#SetEnvIf] directive.