Here are the correct paths to the common server resources that CGI scripts often require:

Date:    /bin/date
Sendmail:    /usr/lib/sendmail
Path to Perl interpreter:    #!/usr/bin/perl
Serverpath:   /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin
Root path:    /home/username/ (puts you in the root of your account)
Domain directory:    /home/username/public_html (puts you in your public_html directory)
Cgi-bin path:    /home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/filename (puts you in your cgi-bin)

Put your cgi-bin scripts in the public_html subdirectory named "cgi-bin".

The FormMail Clone Email Form Script we offer pre-installed from cPanel is a clone of Matt Wright's FormMail.cgi under a less restrictive license. It should behave almost exactly as FormMail.cgi, but it is completely written from scratch so there might be a few minor visual diffrences. The FormMail CGI script is already configured on our server for your account. From your Control Panel under Scripts Library, click FormMail and there you will find the location of your preconfigured FormMail script. NOTE: Due to spammers using spider software to attempt to hijack FormMail scripts on servers in order to send spam from those servers, many servers (including ours) no longer use the scriptname FormMail.cgi. We provide you with a new name for your script if you decide to use the script.

The 'method' to select for your form is POST. If you would like a handy tutorial on using FormMail, go to http://www.scriptarchive.com/readme/formmail.html .

If are familiar with Perl/CGI and you would like to use the original FormMail script because you prefer to have more control over configuring your variables, please use version FormMail v1.91 or v1.92 to prevent spammers using your script at your bandwidth expense. You can download it at http://www.scriptarchive.com/download.cgi?s=formmail .

500 errors are typically something wrong in the syntax of your script. Most often you should check to make sure you have the path to PERL correct. Currently we are running Perl5.6+ on our servers.

The correct path to PERL is: #!/usr/bin/perl

If you are using FrontPage to create your site, you may need a different solution.

CGIs must be set with executable file permissions, or requests for the script from the web server will result in an Internal Server Error. Scripts that need to be executable should have their permission set with chmod 755. This sets the file's permissions so that the file's owner may read, write, and execute the file; and anyone else can only read and execute it.

Put your CGI programs inside the cgi-bin directory. Make sure you upload them in ASCII mode. Change permissions to 755 for the script (chmod 755 scriptname). Access them via http://www.yourname.com/cgi-bin/scriptname

Type http://ip-address/~username in your web browser replacing username with your actual username and replace ip-address with ip address containted in the welcome email.