Configuring Active Perl

Configuring Active Perl
(Windows 2000 Server)

About ActiveState ActivePerl.
Perl Scripts were once used exclusively on *NIX-based web servers, not any more. Active Perl allows CGI applications to run on Windows-based Servers. Of course, we know that CGI applications are not as efficent as ASP apps but it's very easy to find a free Perl Script to add extra functionality to your site.

To find out more about Active State ActivePerl, visit the following site:

1. Where to find the Internet Services Manager Dialogue.
Click on 'Start', 'Programs' and then 'Administrative Tools'. You'll be presented with the box you can see in Fig.1 (above). Select 'Internet Services Manager'.

2. The Properties Dialogue:
By this time you should be familiar with the IIS Console, so locating your site in the list, right-clicking on your CGI directory and selecting properties shouldn't pose a serious problem. The dialogue box shown in Fig.2 (above) should appear.

3. Configuring your CGI application:
First of all, you'll need to uncheck 'Index this resource' because your cgi-bin isn't going to host anything your visitors would want to see.
Next, click on 'Create' (shown in Fig.2). This will bring up a dialogue not unlike the one above (Fig.3). Click on 'Configuration' and proceed to the next step.

4. The Application Configuration Dialogue:
This dialogue is simply telling the server how to deal with certain script-based files. You can see that asp.dll processes all ASP applications as well as CDX, ASA and so on.... However, nothing exists in the list to process CGI applications.
Click on 'Add' and proceed to the next step.

5. Application Extension Mapping:
Enter the details shown above.
The Executable is the path to the Perl.exe file, (default installation location shown) and the '%s %s' are required because the server needs to know firstly where the script is located and secondly what the script parameters are. If you don't understand, don't worry, just make sure you include them.
The Extension (in this case .cgi) means that any file with this extension in this directory will be processed in this way, although it may be necessary to also include another application with .pl as the extension. If that is necessary just repeat all the steps and add the extension .pl instead of .cgi.
Finally, I'm going to limit what the application can do to just 'GET' and 'PUT'. This is only a measure to protect the application against malicious intent from it's users, not really necessary in this case, but good practice.

6. The completed Application Configuration Dialogue:
If you have followed these instructions correctly, your Application Configuration dialogue box should look something like Fig 6 (above). You can add as many extra applications as you like, .pl would be a good start.