To set up a Guestbook cgi script:

1. First, download the guestbook.zip file and unzip the files. Make sure you read all documentation before you begin so as to understand everything involved (and spare wasted time later on).
2. Open up guestbook.cgi in any text editor (Notepad or Wordpad work best). Change the variables near the top of the script to meet your specifications.

   For Personal Accounts:

   • $guestbookurl = "http://www.w-link.net/~username/guestbook.html";
   • $guestbookreal = "/home/username/public_html/guestbook.html";
   • $guestlog = "/home/username/public_html/guestlog.html";
   • $cgiurl = "http://www.w-link.net/~username/cgi-bin/guestbook.cgi";
   • $date_command = "/bin/date";

   For Domain Accounts on Unix:
   (most of our Domain Accounts are NOT on Unix. Unless you have specifically requested to be on our Unix machine, you are on NT and need to go to the page for setting up a guestbook on NT.)

   • $guestbookurl = "http://your.host.com/guestbook.html";
   • $guestbookreal = "/httpd/htdocs/yourdomain/guestbook.html";
   • $guestlog = "/httpd/htdocs/yourdomain/guestlog.html";
   • $cgiurl = "http://your.host.com/cgi-bin/guestbook.cgi";
   • $date_command = "/bin/date";

3. You can change the Options below the Variables as you see fit, however the defaults will work fine for nearly everyone.
4. Next, change the guestbook.html and addguest.html pages to reflect your information. Open these files in Notepad or Wordpad and change the lines in between the < ! --Change this line -- > tags.
5. Upload the 3 .html pages to your main home page directory using a standard FTP program. Make sure you use ASCII transfer and not binary.
6. Next, create a cgi-bin directory in your main directory (name it 'cgi-bin'... nothing else) and upload the guestbook.cgi file into that directory. Again, make sure you use ASCII transfer and not binary.
7. Now for the trickiest part - telnet to 'shell.w-link.net' and log in with your username and password. You can use any telnet client (you can go to Start, Run, and type 'telnet shell.w-link.net' in Windows 95). Once logged in, type 'cd public_html' and hit enter. Next, type 'cd cgi-bin' and hit enter. You will now be in the directory with your guestbook.cgi file. In here, type 'chmod a+x guestbook.cgi' and hit enter. This will give world executable permissions on this one file. Then, change directories so that you are in the same directory as your guestbook.html file ('cd ..'). In here, type 'chmod a+rw guestbook.html' and hit enter. This will allow the server to write to the .html file so it can add new guestbook entries. You can exit out of telnet after this.
8. To add a guestbook entry, go to the page http://www.w-link.net/~username/addguest.html
9. To view guestbook entries, go to the page http://www.w-link.net/~username/guestbook.html
10. To view a quick log of all the entries, go to the page http://www.w-link.net/~username/guestlog.html
11. To remove entries from the guestbook, edit the guestbook.html file and remove the offending lines.
12. If you get an Internal Server Error (number 500 or something), you missed a step somewhere along the way. Go back over everything, paying attention to great detail as one thing missed will prevent the script from running.