Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard method of transmitting information between an application and a Web server. CGI scripts are used to supplement basic HTML pages by making your Web site more interactive and functional. You can program many useful features in CGI scripts, such as hit counters, guest books, order forms and message boards. CGI is an alternative to Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP).

All of Hostway's plans support CGI scripts and provide you with your own CGI bin in which you can place your CGI scripts.

UNIX plans include a free library of CGI scripts that you can use to enhance your Web site. These scripts are installed in your account and are ready to run when you first log in.

The CGI bin is the directory where all of your CGI scripts are stored. Scripts are stored in this directory so that the Web server will know to execute these scripts instead of just displaying them in a browser. This directory has executable permissions, while all of your other directories should remain non-executable.

With your own local CGI bin directory, you can store custom CGI scripts that you have written yourself or found elsewhere on the Web. On Hostway's UNIX platforms, the path to the cgi-bin directory is home/domainname/www/cgi-bin. On Windows 2000 platforms, the path is /masterusername/www/cgi-bin.

CGI scripts can be written in almost any programming language, including C, C++, TCL, Perl, Python, Java and Visual Basic. Hostway's UNIX Plans provide support for CGI scripts written in Perl 5.x, C++, GCC (GNU Compiler Collection), TCL and Python.

Yes. You can upload your own CGI scripts to your local /cgi-bin directory. On Hostway's UNIX platforms, the path to the cgi-bin is home/domainname/www/cgi-bin. On Windows 2000 platforms, the path is /masterusername/www/cgi-bin.

All of Hostway's UNIX Plans include the following scripts:
•   Counter script
•   GuestBook script
•   WWWBoard script
•   CGIEmail script
•   FormMail script