cgi-engine does not run

[Alex Rice]

On Wednesday, September 10, 2003, at 06:31  PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> I've had some issues with my Linux hosting company when they tried to 
> update
> the server.  They don't offer Telnet for security reasons,

Just curious: Usually when an provider yanks telnet support (a wise 
choice) they offer SSH (secure shell) instead. Does your hosting 
company offer that? The ssh client is included with OS X.

>  However,
>     when attempting to execute the mc cgi, an error
>     message is generated.  This is "invalid magic number".

I am guessing the file was corrupted in transit, or they have binary 
for another OS or architecture.

In UNIX, file types are not determined by the file system or the 
kernel, so the first few bytes of a file may contain a "magic number" 
designating it's file type. For shell scripts, the familiar idiom on 
the first line #! is the magic number telling the OS it's a shell 
script. For executables, the magic number is system dependent. There 
are many others but #! is the only one I've ever needed to remember.

In order for your CGI to launch, the script and the engine both have to 
start with the correct "magic number".

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco