RE: [cobalt-users] telnet/ssh

["Donna" <webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> [mailto:cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Carrie
> Bartkowiak

> What would be ideal would be to turn off telnet access for
> the users that
> have it now (except for me) and then give them some other way
> to run command
> line stuff that is in their directory (like checking to see
> where a cgi file
> is exiting and why).

Scripts that let you run command-lines through your browser give
me the shivers *g*

There's a perl module that makes debugging without telnet simple.
It sends the error line that's written to the log to the browser
with the Internal server error. I've not put this on a RAQ yet,
but have used it on other 'nix boxes. It's very handy, even if
you do have telnet access. I'm not sure which particular RAQs it
might be standard on, if any, but that's simple enough to check.
Add the line:

use CGI::Carp qw(fatalsToBrowser);

to the top of a cgi you know works. If it bums out, you'll need a
trip over to CPAN to grab the module and install it. I already
posted instructions on how to install perl modules, so check the
archive for that if you need it.

Once you know the module is in place, you'll have to remove the
premade Internal server error page the Cobalt spits out and leave
it with the default Apache output instead. I'm pretty sure the
ways and means of accomplishing that have already been discussed
a few times here, so the archive should have all the info on that
already.

While you're debugging the script, the errors are displayed
through your browser. As soon as your script is working, just
wipe out or comment out the line if you want to go back to the
standard error without the info. FTP is sufficient for the rest,
such as renaming files, or checking their location, etc.

--
Donna Lever
Smart Artist Web Services
http://www.smartartist.com.au/