Hi Martin,
See comments below.
Martin Dengler wrote:
> I am putting together the next round of updates to the CGIGatewayServlet
> which provides CGI capabilities (especially if you map it to /cgi-bin/* :)).
>
> Hopefully this will take it to full beta-level; I would like to get it
> to a point where it can be included in CVS & the next beta of Tomcat 4.0.
>
> A couple of issues have arisen and I would like to solicit opinions on:
>
> 1) Name, Package, and Inner Classes
> 2) Providing Functional testing classes
> 3) Providing Examples
> 4) Addition to default context
> 5) Default location of cgi scripts
>
> This is my first attempt at wide feedback/partipation, so please let me
> know any meta-comments, definitely. (For example, is this off-topic, too
> much detail, etc.?)
>
> Issues:
>
> 1) Name, Package, and Inner Classes:
>
> Name: Current name is CGIGatewayServlet. The rationale is "this is the
> first name I thought of." Would we prefer CGIInvokerServlet?
>
I personally prefer CGIInvokerServlet than CGIGatewayServlet since
CGIGatewayServlet sounds kind of redundant (because it is CGI(Common Gateway
Interface) GatewayServlet. This doesn't matter much though.
>
> Package: Right now I have put this code in one source file in the
> org.apache.catalina.servlets package. I believe this to be the right
> package based on WebDav, SsiInvoker, and other similar servlets. Any
> suggestions?
I think the invoker servlet is in the right place
(org.apache.catalina.servlets).
>
>
> Inner Classes: The CGIGatewayServlet.java file has one main class and
> two inner classes. Do we have any design-type preferences or lack
> thereof vis-a-vis inner classes? The inner classes could be moved out
> to org.apache.catalina.util as a thought. My personal inclination would
> be to leave them as inner classes, since they are not particularly
> applicable to other parts of catalina. However, that could be viewed as
> slightly detracting from their maintainability...
>
BIG +1 for separating those inner classes and putting them in
org.apache.catalina.util.cgi. It will be a LOT easier to maintain. I did this
already for myself to review your code. I can send them to you if you want to
save a little time. :-)
>
> 2) Addition to default context
>
> Would this CGI servlet be added to the default context similar to
> SsiInvokerServlet?
Yes.
> If so, would people prefer I do that myself and
> submit a load of file patches for the commit of the CGI servlet &
> related files which included the catalina web.xml?
This is a minor issue adding a few lines to catalina web.xml. I have done this
already on my CVS tree.
>
>
> 3) Providing Examples
>
> Would it be appropriate to provide some links in the examples webapp
> along with an example cgi script? I would have thought so...
YES. In fact, could you send me some?
>
> 3) Providing Functional testing classes
>
> I was wondering if and how I should add any testing cgi scripts. I have
> some (obviously :)), but should they be put into the tester area because
> they are for testing, or should I reuse some examples webapp (above
> issue #2) cgi scripts? Any issues with this dependency?
>
We can put them into tester area so we can run tester if/when we add/modify CGI
feature. Could you send me these scripts as well?
>
> 5) Default location of cgi scripts
>
> In another project, we have put all cgi scripts under
> <webapp>/WEB-INF/cgi since they are then 1) not liable to be served by
> the container; yet 2) still encapsulated underneath the webapp's own
> directory structure.
>
> One observation and two issues here:
>
> Observation: the Servlet spec is obviously silent on CGI placement
> issues; yet we should probably support (and even default to?) something
> congruent with standard CGI practice of separating the HTML and CGI
> scripts (/doc-root and /cgi-bin) while not encouraging anything which
> breaks the Servlet API's web application filesystem (or war file)
> boundaries.
>
> Issue 1) generally, how do people like the <webapp>/WEB-INF/cgi solution
> in light of the above observation?
+1
>
>
> Issue 2) if people like it, should we make it the default setting (by
> defining an init-parameter for the CGI servlet in the container-wide
> web.xml file)?
I think we should designate a cgi directory where people can put CGI scripts for
security reasons.
Is the source code from http://www.martindengler.com/proj/CGIGatewayServlet.zip
the most updated one?
Cheer,
Amy
>
>
> Thanks in advance for feedback/suggestions.
>
> Chrs,
> Martin
