<html><head><META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"><title>Apache Tomcat 6.0 (6.0.35) - CGI How To</title><meta name="author" content="Glenn L. Nielsen"><style type="text/css" media="print"> .noPrint {display: none;} td#mainBody {width: 100%;} </style></head><body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#525D76" alink="#525D76" vlink="#525D76"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0"><!--PAGE HEADER--><tr><td><!--PROJECT LOGO--><a href="http://tomcat.apache.org/"><img src="./images/tomcat.gif" align="right" alt=" The Apache Tomcat Servlet/JSP Container " border="0"></a></td><td><h1><font face="arial,helvetica,sanserif">Apache Tomcat 6.0</font></h1><font face="arial,helvetica,sanserif">Version 6.0.35, Feb 17 2017</font></td><td><!--APACHE LOGO--><a href="http://www.apache.org/"><img src="./images/asf-logo.gif" align="right" alt="Apache Logo" border="0"></a></td></tr></table><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="4"><!--HEADER SEPARATOR--><tr><td colspan="2"><hr noshade size="1"></td></tr><tr><!--LEFT SIDE NAVIGATION--><td width="20%" valign="top" nowrap class="noPrint"><p><strong>Links</strong></p><ul><li><a href="index.html">Docs Home</a></li><li><a href="http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ">FAQ</a></li></ul><p><strong>User Guide</strong></p><ul><li><a href="introduction.html">1) Introduction</a></li><li><a href="setup.html">2) Setup</a></li><li><a href="appdev/index.html">3) First webapp</a></li><li><a href="deployer-howto.html">4) Deployer</a></li><li><a href="manager-howto.html">5) Manager</a></li><li><a href="realm-howto.html">6) Realms and AAA</a></li><li><a href="security-manager-howto.html">7) Security Manager</a></li><li><a href="jndi-resources-howto.html">8) JNDI Resources</a></li><li><a href="jndi-datasource-examples-howto.html">9) JDBC DataSources</a></li><li><a href="class-loader-howto.html">10) Classloading</a></li><li><a href="jasper-howto.html">11) JSPs</a></li><li><a href="ssl-howto.html">12) SSL</a></li><li><a href="ssi-howto.html">13) SSI</a></li><li><a href="cgi-howto.html">14) CGI</a></li><li><a href="proxy-howto.html">15) Proxy Support</a></li><li><a href="mbeans-descriptor-howto.html">16) MBean Descriptor</a></li><li><a href="default-servlet.html">17) Default Servlet</a></li><li><a href="cluster-howto.html">18) Clustering</a></li><li><a href="balancer-howto.html">19) Load Balancer</a></li><li><a href="connectors.html">20) Connectors</a></li><li><a href="monitoring.html">21) Monitoring and Management</a></li><li><a href="logging.html">22) Logging</a></li><li><a href="apr.html">23) APR/Native</a></li><li><a href="virtual-hosting-howto.html">24) Virtual Hosting</a></li><li><a href="aio.html">25) Advanced IO</a></li><li><a href="extras.html">26) Additional Components</a></li><li><a href="maven-jars.html">27) Mavenized</a></li></ul><p><strong>Reference</strong></p><ul><li><a href="RELEASE-NOTES.txt">Release Notes</a></li><li><a href="config/index.html">Configuration</a></li><li><a href="api/index.html">Javadocs</a></li><li><a href="http://tomcat.apache.org/connectors-doc/">JK 1.2 Documentation</a></li></ul><p><strong>Apache Tomcat Development</strong></p><ul><li><a href="building.html">Building</a></li><li><a href="changelog.html">Changelog</a></li><li><a href="http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/TomcatVersions">Status</a></li><li><a href="developers.html">Developers</a></li><li><a href="architecture/index.html">Architecture</a></li><li><a href="funcspecs/index.html">Functional Specs.</a></li></ul></td><!--RIGHT SIDE MAIN BODY--><td width="80%" valign="top" align="left" id="mainBody"><h1>Apache Tomcat 6.0</h1><h2>CGI How To</h2><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"><tr><td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica.sanserif"><a name="Table of Contents"><!--()--></a><a name="Table_of_Contents"><strong>Table of Contents</strong></a></font></td></tr><tr><td><blockquote> <ul><li><a href="#Introduction">Introduction</a></li><li><a href="#Installation">Installation</a></li><li><a href="#Configuration">Configuration</a></li></ul> </blockquote></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"><tr><td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica.sanserif"><a name="Introduction"><strong>Introduction</strong></a></font></td></tr><tr><td><blockquote> <p>The CGI (Common Gateway Interface) defines a way for a web server to interact with external content-generating programs, which are often referred to as CGI programs or CGI scripts. </p> <p>Within Tomcat, CGI support can be added when you are using Tomcat as your HTTP server and require CGI support. Typically this is done during development when you don't want to run a web server like Apache httpd. Tomcat's CGI support is largely compatible with Apache httpd's, but there are some limitations (e.g., only one cgi-bin directory). </p> <p>CGI support is implemented using the servlet class <code>org.apache.catalina.servlets.CGIServlet</code>. Traditionally, this servlet is mapped to the URL pattern "/cgi-bin/*".</p> <p>By default CGI support is disabled in Tomcat.</p> </blockquote></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"><tr><td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica.sanserif"><a name="Installation"><strong>Installation</strong></a></font></td></tr><tr><td><blockquote> <p><strong>CAUTION</strong> - CGI scripts are used to execute programs external to the Tomcat JVM. If you are using the Java SecurityManager this will bypass your security policy configuration in <code>catalina.policy.</code></p> <p>Remove the XML comments from around the CGI servlet and servlet-mapping configuration in <code>$CATALINA_BASE/conf/web.xml</code>.</p> <p>Only Contexts which are marked as privileged may use the CGI servlet (see the privileged property of the Context element).</p> </blockquote></td></tr></table><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"><tr><td bgcolor="#525D76"><font color="#ffffff" face="arial,helvetica.sanserif"><a name="Configuration"><strong>Configuration</strong></a></font></td></tr><tr><td><blockquote> <p>There are several servlet init parameters which can be used to configure the behaviour of the CGI servlet. <ul> <li><strong>cgiPathPrefix</strong> - The CGI search path will start at the web application root directory + File.separator + this prefix. The default cgiPathPrefix is <code>WEB-INF/cgi</code></li> <li><strong>debug</strong> - Debugging detail level for messages logged by this servlet. Default 0.</li> <li><strong>executable</strong> - The of the executable to be used to run the script. You may explicitly set this parameter to be an empty string if your script is itself executable (e.g. an exe file). Default is <code>perl</code>.</li> <li><strong>executable-arg-1</strong>, <strong>executable-arg-2</strong>, and so on - additional arguments for the executable. These precede the CGI script name. By default there are no additional arguments.</li> <li><strong>envHttpHeaders</strong> - A regular expression used to select the HTTP headers passed to the CGI process as environment variables. Note that headers are converted to upper case before matching and that the entire header name must match the pattern. Default is <code>ACCEPT[-0-9A-Z]*|CACHE-CONTROL|COOKIE|HOST|IF-[-0-9A-Z]*|REFERER|USER-AGENT</code> </li> <li><strong>parameterEncoding</strong> - Name of the parameter encoding to be used with the CGI servlet. Default is <code>System.getProperty("file.encoding","UTF-8")</code>.</li> <li><strong>passShellEnvironment</strong> - Should the shell environment variables (if any) be passed to the CGI script? Default is <code>false</code>.</li> <li><strong>stderrTimeout</strong> - The time (in milliseconds) to wait for the reading of stderr to complete before terminating the CGI process. Default is 2000.</li> </ul> </p> </blockquote></td></tr></table></td></tr><!--FOOTER SEPARATOR--><tr><td colspan="2"><hr noshade size="1"></td></tr><!--PAGE FOOTER--><tr><td colspan="2"><div align="center"><font color="#525D76" size="-1"><em> Copyright © 1999-2017, Apache Software Foundation </em></font></div></td></tr></table></body></html>