Several Ways to Pass Data to Scripts

This is a sample file that runs a script on the server, passing it some (fake) data. Notes on what you should see:

• The "data" appears on the line starting QUERY_STRING.

• Those of you who have not yet sent me your IP ADDRESS and or HOST NAME should be able to read it now yourself [*] off the result of this script!

This example runs a script on the server, passing it some (fake) filename data.

Notes on what you should see:

• This time, the "file data" appears on the lines regarding PATH.

• Again, you should be able to see your own ADDR and HOST info.

[*] To find your machine's data, look on the lines that begin REMOTE... This is the information I can get hold of when you link to one of the course pages. I can, in fact, grant or deny access based on that if I want. I've not done that, by choice, but I am logging the REMOTE data. At the end of this course, I'll start scanning it to see if I'm getting hits from unknown places and if it looks like I'll need to impose restrictions, set up logins, etc.

Setting up a login and password mechanism is more reliable than guessing from machine source, but it's also more work than I want to do at this point. On the other hand, there are two major problems with using machine-data to limit access. The first is that you should be able to access these notes from any machine you want -- that's part of the delight of the 'Net. The second is that some of you connect in through places that don't assign permanent data to your machine but, instead, assign you a set out of a pool every time you log in there. (Still, each pool is finite, so I ought to be able to guess that it's either you or your colleague on the same system, even if I can't spot you specifically.)