CGI Programs
on Columbia's Web Server
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) provides a mechanism that will run
a program and display the output of that program in your Web browser.
Any Web document can be linked to a CGI program so that the program is
executed when a user selects the appropriate link. Several CGI
programs are available to users of the Columbia Web Server.
It is our desire to provide easy to use CGI programs that are
generally useful to a broad range of users. We don't allow users to
install their own CGI programs on our server, for security reasons.
Here is the list of currently available CGI programs. Select a
program name to display access information for that program.
About These Scripts
More information is available about Columbia's
CGI policy.
CGI Scripts on our Web Server
Each of the following documents describes a CGI Script on
Columbia's main web server. In most cases there is a link to the
script itself at the end of each document, so you can see how the
script works or install it on your own web server.
- form-maker
- Create an HTML form dynamically by reading a template file and
adding or changing some variables. This permits a variety of forms to
be created, based on a single template.
generic-form-mail
- This script is no longer supported. Please use generic-inbox
instead.
- generic-db
- Use the generic-db CGI to create and maintain database tables using
a web interface. You create web forms that allow users to add data or
display the data in your tables. You decide who has read access and
who has read/write access to each table. Users of the generic-db CGI
authenticate to the secure web servers administered by CUIT using
their UNI and password.
- generic-inbox
- Accepts a variety of input from a Web user and mails it to the
document owner, or writes the data to a file, or both. The input can
include text fields, radio buttons, and option selectors. Often used
to collect survey results, or to obtain feedback from Web users.
- imagemap
- Process input from a sensitive map (clickable image). This CGI
program is now deprecated because client-side imagemaps are faster and
more user-friendly. Client-side imagemaps are described here as
well.
- lookup
- Find a person's entry in the online directory. If the person has
a home page you will also see a link to their home page.
- madsearch
- Madsearch is no longer supported. Please use generic-db instead.
- query-get
- Display the output produced by an HTML form which uses
method=get. Useful for debugging the form.
- query-post
- Display the output produced by an HTML form which uses
method=post. Useful for debugging the form.
- sundial
- Calendar system which feeds the university events calendar.
- stdgrep
- Searches a file for a query string. Can also search for multiple
target strings. User can specify the context (surrounding text) in
which to find the target.
- ultraseek
- Accepts a search query from the user and performs a search for web
documents using the Ultraseek search engine. The user can create their
own search form to search a particular directory.
- unify
- Search and manage course information and advising information.
- uptime
- Sample script that runs
uptime on the server.
- showstats
- Displays a portion of the weekly Web Usage Report for a particular
directory.
