The University of Melbourne - local cgi-mailer documentation

cgi-mailer - Local Documentation

The CWIS Group has produced the following local documentation to complement the main documentation:

Use of HTTPS servers
cgi-mailer file summary

Use of HTTPS servers

If you are hosting your form on a HTTPS (HTTP over SSL) server you can set the action field to the HTTPS server as well. This will ensure that the form data is sent using HTTPS as well (and therefore help keep the information being submitted by the user secure).

To do this set the action field:

<FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="https://www.unimelb.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgi-mailer.pl">
.
.
.

Please note that whilst this keeps the information secure as it travels across the internet, the data is still trasferred in clear-text across the university network when the email response is sent.

cgi-mailer file summary

There are several files which cgi-mailer uses when processing a request. The following table summarises the cgi-mailer files, file extensions and purposes.

File	File Name		Description
File	Long filenames	Dos'ish 8+3	Description
The form	*.html	*.htm	The main HTML form
Format data	*.data	*.dat	Email response data file
Required data	*.required	*.req	Required fields data file
Response data	*.response	*.res	HTML response file

The default configuration files are as follows:

File	File Name		Description
File	Long filenames	Dos'ish 8+3	Description
The form	index.html	index.htm	The main HTML form (requires hidden `index-file` field)
Format data	cgi-mailer-data.default	cmail-dat.def	Email response data file
Required data	cgi-mailer-required.default	cmail-req.def	Required fields data file
Response data	cgi-mailer-response.default	cmail-res.def	HTML response file

Notes on usage of files:

Only one file-naming 'mode' can be used for a form, ie all files must either be named using the long filenames, or dos'ish 8+3 filenames. The file-naming convention being used is set by the name of the main HTML form.
All files should be in UNIX text. If files with Apple Macintosh or ms windows newlines are submitted errors may occur.
The easist way to ensure that this occurs is to upload the files via ftp using 'text mode'.

Created:       23 November 2001
Last Modified: 13 January 2003
Authorised by: Director, Information Technology Services.

Maintained by: CWIS Group cwis@unimelb.edu.au