Configuring other supported CGI web servers

The CGI Web Connector allows you to connect Crystal Enterprise to web servers that support the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). Depending upon your web server, you typically configure CGI applications in one of two ways: either you specify a particular directory (the cgi-bin) as one that allows programs to execute commands or scripts, or you specify certain file types that are globally executable, regardless of the directory in which they are located. The default web applications provided with Crystal Enterprise—the Crystal Enterprise web desktop and the Crystal Management Console (CMC)—require the latter method.

In Crystal Enterprise, the actual CGI Web Connector program is wcscgi.cgi (also provided as wcscgi.exe on Windows). The program handle.s requests for .csp, .cwr, and .cri files. Consult your web server documentation to see how to specify certain file types as being globally executable by a particular interpreter; then associate all .csp, .cwr, and .cri files with the wcscgi.cgi script. (As far as the web server is concerned, the wcscgi.cgi script is the interpreter. However, on UNIX this script really serves as a wrapper that sets additional environment variables before passing the scripting request along to wcscgi.bin, which is the actual CGI Web Connector binary.)

The Crystal Enterprise web desktop and the CMC do not contain all .csp, .cwr, and .cri files to a single cgi-bin directory. Therefore, these default applications will not function properly if your web server requires you to specify executable files by directory. In such cases, however, you can still deploy your own web applications that reference .csp scripts from the cgi-bin, so long as you map the Crystal Enterprise file types in the cgi-bin to the wcscgi.cgi script.

The CGI Web Connector is provided for use with web servers that support the CGI standard. The CGI connector obtains configuration information through environment variables. During installation, the setup script customizes the wcscgi.cgi script for your installation and saves the file in the following directory of your Web Connector installation:

/crystal_root/enterprise/platform/wcs/bin

This script sets up the environment variables and the library path and executes the connector binary.

On UNIX, when you install the Web Connector, the setup script generates additional Apache and iPlanet CGI configuration files and customizes them for your installation of Crystal Enterprise. For details, see Enabling the CGI Web Connector for Apache and Enabling the CGI Web Connector for iPlanet on UNIX.

Note:    See the Platforms.txt file included with your product distribution for a complete list of web servers that are officially supported for use with the CGI Web Connector. Using the CGI Web Connector with other web servers is neither recommended nor supported.