You're welcome to include CGI programs on your site! Perl 5.6.1, Python 2.2, and Ruby 1.6.7 are available. You are not restricted to having programs in your /cgi-bin/ directory. In order for the CGI programs to be enabled, please upload your scripts, tell me where they are, and I'll set them to be executable. If you have a shell account you can of course do this yourself (chmod +x script_name).

Notes on CGI use

There are many "canned" scripts floating around the net which while useful have serious security implications. One such offender is Matt's Script Archives which has a particularly appalling record -- I see on average three or four several automated attacks on the MSA "formmail.pl" script every day. Fortunately there is a replacement, NMS CGI which are drop-in replacements. Matt's Script Archive programs are categorically disallowed here, please use these other ones!

Perl CGI

• Scripts must be in Unix or PC format, that is ending with Linefeeds or Carriage-Return+Linefeed pairs. Mac format, just carriage-returns, will not work. There will be an option in any decent Mac editor to save in Unix (or failing that PC) format.
• There must be an interpreter line on the first line, one of #!/usr/bin/perl -options or #!/usr/local/bin/perl -options
• If you need addtional modules from CPAN, let me know and I'll install them.

N.B. "program" is a more general word for "script".