[Xitami] New to Xitami & running xbase++ CGI's

[Paul Reid]

> Xitami install doesn't create a CGI-BIN directory

Older builds shipped with a simple CGI executable (printed
environment values) in that folder. In today's internet, exposing
your environment to strangers is a Poor Idea, so it was taken out of
recent builds. The packaging tool wasn't told to pack empty folders,
so omitted it. An oversight, but easily fixed as you did. And
perhaps forcing you to create your own CGI-BIN is the better idea,
so you can't have CGI without thinking first.

> I attempted to run my dll [ which is uspposed to call the exe ].
> MZLOAD1.dll and I receive a windows warning 'You area attempting
> to open a file of type "Application Extension" dll 'and suggests
> that running a file of this type may be harmful etc. Its as if its
> trying to download the dll instaed of running it the same way IIS
> used to.

IIS (and PWS) may be unique in using DLL files as directly
executable programs. This supports MS's hidden agenda: sell MS
compilers and other programming tools, and make it difficult to
switch off of IIS to another server if you have done any custom
programming.

Can you open a CMD window (Start, Run, "cmd", Enter) and run a .DLL
file? I'm too scared to even try that, since I don't know what any
of my DLL files do. If you can't run a DLL from a command prompt,
then you may not be able to run it as CGI under Xitami. Maybe it
would work if the DLL file were rebuilt as an EXE file.

> my dll ...is uspposed to call the exe

Does the DLL actually do anything, or is it just there to trick IIS
into running the EXE (something it may not do naturally)? If the DLL
is just a starting-stub, try calling the EXE directly.

I'm no fan of IIS, but it appears as an installable option on the
XP-Pro that I have here. You can find XP-Pro in an OEM package for
only $90 more than XP-home.

PWS (Personal Web Server) is IIS-Lite, was a free download, and
supports much of IIS's peculiar CGI interface including using DLLs
as CGI executables. I don't know if it is available for XP (it may
not matter: the same PWS ran on 9x and NT4 so it may be agnostic).
Or it may be listed in your XP-Home "Add Software"?

You may find that Apache has something someone has written to run
IIS-style DLL CGI. Apache is good, and free, and the current version
will run right out of the box without tedious INI-file hacking. You
may need a little INI editing to run CGI or DLL-CGI, and Apache does
not have the cool web-interface for that.

 -PRR