PERL CGI Beginners - file upload question

Author

file upload question

Sander

2004-09-27, 3:55 pm

I am very new to apache 2, but have some cgi experience. We recently put
our own apache server online, however I have spent several hours on google,
and can't find the simple answer to what I would think is something pretty
simple. How do I allow my web designer to upload the website files without
having local access to the server. ftp? I can't find any documentation on
this at all.

I hope this is not off-topic, but I figure this would be the best place to
get a straight answer. Thanks.

David Dorward

2004-09-27, 3:55 pm

On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 09:36:43AM -0500, Sander wrote:
> our own apache server online,
> How do I allow my web designer to upload the website files without
> having local access to the server. ftp?

> I hope this is not off-topic

Unless the answer is "Write an upload interface in Perl CGI in which
developers POST their files to the server", then yes I rather suspect
it is off topic. (And if you do try that answer, I think you would
shortly find yourself being beaten to a pulp by any developer who
wanted to upload a number of files other then 1 or 0.)

There are dozens of ways to copy files from one system to another over
a network. Which are good for you depend on you, your developers and
your network topography.

I would avoid ftp, as sending passwords in clear text is a good
invitation to people wanting to break into servers. My preferences
would like down the route of rsync over ftp.

A better place to ask this question would be a newsgroup about
networking whatever OS you are running apache on (including details of
the network - LAN? Internet? VPN?)

--
David Dorward http://dorward.me.uk

Trey Waters

2004-09-29, 3:55 pm

On Mon, 27 Sep 2004, David Dorward wrote:

> On Mon, Sep 27, 2004 at 09:36:43AM -0500, Sander wrote:
>
>
> Unless the answer is "Write an upload interface in Perl CGI in which
> developers POST their files to the server", then yes I rather suspect
> it is off topic. (And if you do try that answer, I think you would
> shortly find yourself being beaten to a pulp by any developer who
> wanted to upload a number of files other thAn 1 or 0.)
>
I kinda agree with you on this, but mostly don't....This is really an
off-topic post, but I have successfully written a CGI script that allows a
friend to upload pages that I host for her. Took me all of 2 hours, and
even supports basic versioning.

Now, she is only able to upload one file, but it's setup to expect a .zip
file so that her entire tree is done in one shot.

> I would avoid ftp, as sending passwords in clear text is a good
> invitation to people wanting to break into servers. My preferences
> would like down the route of rsync over ftp.
>
I agree that ftp is bad, but does rsync really give you better security?
I would think something like scp would be a better choice for this.

The reason I went with the CGI script was that this was for a person that
is barely Windows-competent, and I didn't want to add the hassle of having
her download and figure out a secure copy client (meaning I would be doing
a ton of support).

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Trey Waters news4@sidestreet.tzo.com
Experience is the worst teacher.
It always gives the test first and the instruction afterward.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+

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