CGI with Tomcat 7

We can run CGI scripts in Tomcat. This post is about using Tomcat to run a CGI script written in PERL.

Software Requirements (used for this post)

• Apache Tomcat 7.0.11
• JDK 1.6 update 21
• Perl 5.12 (ActivePerl-5.12.2.1202)
• Windows XP SP3

Install and Configure

1. Download Tomcat. Install or unzip it to some directory.
2. Modify <TOMCAT_HOME>\conf\web.xml to uncomment the GCI servlet and its mapping and add a servlet parameter passShellEnvironment and set it to “true”
   
   XHTML

   <servlet> <servlet-name>cgi</servlet-name> <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.CGIServlet</servlet-class> <init-param> <param-name>debug</param-name> <param-value>0</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name> <param-value>WEB-INF/cgi</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>passShellEnvironment</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> </init-param> <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup> </servlet> <servlet-mapping> <servlet-name>cgi</servlet-name> <url-pattern>/cgi-bin/*</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping>

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   <servlet>     <servlet-name>cgi</servlet-name>     <servlet-class>org.apache.catalina.servlets.CGIServlet</servlet-class>     <init-param>         <param-name>debug</param-name>         <param-value>0</param-value>     </init-param>     <init-param>         <param-name>cgiPathPrefix</param-name>         <param-value>WEB-INF/cgi</param-value>     </init-param>     <init-param>         <param-name>passShellEnvironment</param-name>         <param-value>true</param-value>     </init-param>     <load-on-startup>5</load-on-startup> </servlet>   <servlet-mapping>     <servlet-name>cgi</servlet-name>     <url-pattern>/cgi-bin/*</url-pattern> </servlet-mapping>

3. Modify <TOMCAT_HOME>\conf\context.xml to add a property on <Context>:
   
   XHTML

   <Context privileged="true"> ... </Context>

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   <Context privileged="true"> ... </Context>

4. Create a cgi folder under <TOMCAT_HOME>\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\
5. Install Perl
6. Create a CGI script and place it under <TOMCAT_HOME>\webapps\ROOT\WEB-INF\cgi\
   
   Perl

   #!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe # filename: test1.cgi print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; print "Hello, world!\n"

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   #!C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe # filename: test1.cgi print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; print "Hello, world!\n"

7. Start Tomcat and access the URL:http://localhost:8080/cgi-bin/test1.cgi