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Do I need CGI/CGI-bin enabled?

SevenupcanSevenupcan
edited February 2006 in Vanilla 1.0 Help
This is query is not related to Vanilla, but I know one of you will know the answer.

I've been recently clearing up my hosting account and getting rid of directories I no longer use. One of them is CGI-bin. Now I don't really know what CGI does apart from help with scripts. Obviously I use Vinalla, I also use Mint and WordPress. Do any of these use CGI, if not what does?

So question is can I disable CGI, CGI-bin in my web control panel, and then also delete the directory from my root directory?

Thanks for your time.

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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    I havent bothered disabling cgi in my control panel but i always delete the cgi-bin folder since i never use it. Its only effective on the files inside the dir so assuming there arent any i'm 99% certain you can delete it no probs.
    I can say for sure that vanilla doesnt use cgi (unless your php is cgi based, which is unlikely). As for mint and wordpress i'm not sure but i'd doubt it (and you'd probably know if they did)
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    BergamotBergamot
    Ruby on Rails is cgi-based, though, right?
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    MinisweeperMinisweeper New
    Again i'm under the impression you can configure it to be either cgi or non-cgi based but i only glanced at it in passing.
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    lechlech Chicagoland ✭
    Unless you're planning on running perl/cgi scripts via http, you can safely disable it via whatever control panel that gives the option to do so. I wouldn't however just straight out delete the folder as it's linked throughout most of your server configs and it could cause problems later on. So the obvious answer is: if you don't know what it does and you're not using it, don't touch it :)
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    mattisfrommarsmattisfrommars
    edited February 2006

    And if sometime in the future you decided you need a cgi script (it happens). Then you're screwed.

    NB. CGI is the "Common Gateway Interface. It's used by many technologies such as Perl. CGI files are kept in your cgi-bin, other files are stored elsewhere. Although PHP uses CGI the files aren't stored in your cgi-bin. If you're sure you only want PHP and never anything else, go ahead and disable it

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    SevenupcanSevenupcan
    Ok, thanks for your helps guys. The main reason I asked is because I like to keep my root directory clean. And also like to know what everything does. So thanks for the advice guys. :)
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