Executing bat file

btpoole

Hello all
I am attempting to have a bat file executed on my server based on a selection from html. I no very little about creating a cgi script. I attempted to set up the server interpreter for C:\Windows\System32\CMD.EXEcmd.exe and extensions for .bat. When the link is clicked it wants to save the file not execute it. I am assume this has something to do with security from what I have read. This particular server is not active to any where but by local network. The bat file I wish to execute runs a video conversion program on the fly. Any help greatly appreciated.
Thanks

aprelium-support

btpoole,
Running BAT files as scripts is possible but that's not easy.
Please find a free DOS BATCH Wrapper for Abyss Web Server in http://www.aprelium.com/data/batwrap.exe . It is provided for free by Aprelium.
* Copy batwrap.exe on your hard drive (Abyss Web Server installation directory would be a good location).
* Open Abyss Web Server's console. In the "Hosts" table, press Configure in the row corresponding to the host to which you want to add Batch file support.
* Select "Scripting Parameters".
* Check "Enable Scripts Execution".
* Press "Add" in the "Interpreters" table.
* Set Interface to "CGI/ISAPI".
* In the "Interpreter" field, press "Browse...", go to the directory where you have installed batwrap.exe and click on batwrap.exe.
* Check "Use the associated extensions to automatically update the Script Paths".
* Press "Add" in the "Associated Extensions" table.
* Enter bat in the "Extension" field and press "OK".
* Press "OK".
* Press "OK" in the "Scripting Parameters" dialog.
* Press "Restart" to restart the server and apply the modifications.
From now on, any .bat file in your Web site will be executed as a CGI application.
We also recommend having a look on the following example.bat file to know more about the conventions you need to use when writing a CGI .bat file:


@echo off

rem CGI headers
echo Content-Type: text/html
echo.

rem CGI Body
echo ^<HTML^>^<BODY^>
echo ^<PRE^>Your environment variables are:
set
echo ^</PRE^>^</BODY^>^</HTML^>

Note the use of ^> and ^<. ^ is used here to escape the < and > characters which have a special meaning in batch files.

lazna

Anyone know why this CMD script with such content cause Internal server error 500 ??
@echo off
echo Content-Type: text/html
echo.
echo ^<html^>^<head^>^</head^>^<body^>
echo Hallo
echo ^<body^>^</html^>
other cmd scripts from same virtual directory work fine.
If '@echo off' line is removed, than source of script is displayed on web page as a plain text (Content-Type header not sent by server). What Am I doing wrong?

Toasty

Please don't use this.
Learn the proper way to do it with a server-side language.
Allowing arbitrary running of batch files should be considered harmful.

lazna

Toasty wrote
Please don't use this.
Learn the proper way to do it with a server-side language.
Allowing arbitrary running of batch files should be considered harmful.

Could you tell me more? What is "improper" on using batch files as a CGI?