guestbook cgi in your
siteOffensive content
Error messages reported by
guestbookHow to use VNI's guestbook cgi in your
site
Create a guest book. It can have any name you like. Your guest book should be an HTML file and needs to contain 2 particular lines of HTML code:
<!--begin-->
<a href="cgi-bin/guestbook">add an entry</a>
The <!--begin--> needs to be on a line all by
itself. Every time a new entry is made to your guest book, it will be
added immediately below this line. Feel free to put any other HTML
within this document.
The anchor pointing to the script, <a
href="cgi-bin/guestbook">add an entry</a>, can be
placed anywhere you like. It does have to appear
somewhere.
HTTP_REFERER This brings up
a limitation in my script. Most (but not all) web browsers set a
special variable which lists the location where the user just clicked
(e.g., inside your guest book). guestbook uses this info
to find your guest book file. This means that if a visitor to your
site attempts to make an entry to your guest book with an old or
obscure web browser which does not provide this information the
attempt will produce an error message.
Here is a minimalist example of what your guest book file might look like. This is a very dull and boring example, but it works:
<html><head>
<title>My wondrous guest book</title>
</head>
<body>
This is my guest book. Please <a href="/cgi-bin/guestbook">sign</a>
it.
<hr>
<!--begin-->
</body></html>
Permissions Every time a
visitor uses the guestbook script to make an entry in
your guest book, it needs to make changes in your file. Before the
script can do so, you must give permission.
File permissions is a concept which owners of single-user machines (Mac, consumer level Windows, Amiga, etc.) do not normally have to be aware of. Multi-user computers (Windows NT, UNIX, vms, etc.) use file permissions to control which of the different users of the machine can read and write files.
In addition to the normal read permissions, you need to give global write permissions to your guest book file so that anyone or anything can make changes to it.
Most (but not all) of the popular ftp programs available will allow you to perform this task.
Notification Every time someone makes an entry in your guest book, the owner of your guest book will be e-mailed a short notification, which largely consists of a copy of the new entry.
Offensive Content
Sadly, there exists a reasonable chance that someone will add a message to your guest book which some will find offensive. There is nothing we can do toguestbook which will prevent this.
Under most circumstances we will not even be able to determine the author of the comments.
You will have to be responsible for the content of your guest book.