NetMAX Newsletter - January 2007

1. [General] Happy New Year!
2. [Tips and Tricks] CGI Serving Tips
3. [New!] NetMAX Is Hiring!
4. [General] Let's Hear From You

1. Happy New Year!

2007 is here, and the folks at NetMAX would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. We have many exciting things planned in 2007 -- so keep watching this space for the latest updates, and we'll keep developing NetMAX to better suit your needs!

2. CGI Serving Tips

CGI (Common Gateway Interface) is a great technology for making websites more interactive -- CGI scripts are programs used to generate and customize HTML output, or for processing of forms and user data. If you are interested in serving CGI applications from your NetMAX server, you need only follow a few simple steps -- an example CGI script is included at the bottom of this article.

To enable CGI execution on your website:

1. Log into the NetMAX interface as an administrative user.
2. Access HOME|Services|WWW.
3. Click Create to make a new website, or the pencil icon to edit an existing website.
4. Input proper path and hostname information on the Aliases Tab.
5. Click the OPTIONS tab.
6. Ensure that "Enable CGI Execution" is checked.
7. Optionally, you may wish to change the Default File to the name of your CGI application (i.e. index.cgi).
8. Store and Commit the changes.

This will configure your NetMAX server to treat any file with a name ending in ".cgi" and also marked as executable to be run from anywhere within the path specified in step 4 (including subdirectories) as CGI applications.

Please note! CGI scripts are programs that run ON YOUR SERVER. This means that you should be careful to ensure that any CGI applications you implement are secure, and won't have undesired side effects. CGI applications will be run as the user "nobody" by default, so they won't likely be able to damage the system, but any directories and or files accessible to the "nobody" user -are- accessible by your CGI programs.

For this reason, it is common practice to put all cgi applications under a common directory, separate from your usual web content. This directory is typically called "cgi-bin." To achieve maximum security, administrators should put the cgi-bin directory in a completely separate directory space. To accomplish this, disable CGI execution on the main site, create the cgi-bin directory in a separate directory space, and add a new site by following the instructions above with one key exception: in the box labeled "URL Path" specify "/cgi-bin." This means that the URL to the example CGI becomes "http://www.mynetmax.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi" instead of "http://www.mynetmax.net/index.cgi".

An example CGI script is below:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use CGI;
my $query = new CGI;
print $query->header,
$query->start_html('A Simple Example'),
$query->h1('A Simple Example');

If you have questions about this procedure, or any other aspect of NetMAX, please contact NetMAX Support directly.

3. NetMAX Is Hiring!

The NetMAX Team is growing! If you're a Linux programmer who likes NetMAX, you might be the person we're looking for! Currently, NetMAX is seeking candidates with at least the following programming skills:

• C++
• Perl
• Linux
• Windows (not as important, but some is preferred)
• Networking Administration

For instructions on submitting your resume to the NetMAX folks, please visit the Cybernet Careers web page at:

www.cybernet.com/careers/index.html

Candidates with programming samples available for download/review via the web will get the first look, so let us know if you do!

4. Let's Hear From You!

We would very much like to hear from you - especially about how you use NetMAX and Linux in your business, and what features we can add to NetMAX to make it better suit your needs. Please contribute your input to the NetMAX Forum at:

www.netmax.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

or to our general NetMAX contact form at:

www.netmax.com/partners/contacts.html

Let us know about your likes, dislikes, and general comments. We are especially interested in the features that you would like to see in the forthcoming NetMAX 6.0 release.

Thank you!