CGI-Shell

CGI-Shell gives you a shell using CGI. So everybody who has a CGI-directory on a web-server, also has its own shell on it - comparable with Telnet or SSH.

If you find a bug, have an opinion or want to suggest something feel free to mail me: <michael at binaervarianz dot de>

• PHP support (works not if system() call is disabled in PHP)
• configuration file
• bugfixes, little improvements

• complete re-write in C
• gives you a real shell, starting a server on your web-server and connecting to it
• works fine for almost all programs, e.g. vi, more, man, passwd, ...

• set aliases in cgi-shell.rc
• -cgi option allows server-part to be invoked as cgi-shell-server.cgi
• thanks to Tony Lewis for the changes

• some bug fixes, little improvements
• Stephan Poehlsen has written a PHP-variant of the server-part. So you can use CGI-Shell also, if you do not have a CGI-directory, but PHP: cgi-shell-server.phps

• first release

• How to use CGI-Shell?
  After compiling according to the README file, upload cgi-shell-start.pl and cgi-shell-server to a new directory in your CGI-directory on your web-server. Do not forget to make them executable. It is also recommendable to modify and upload the .ht* files to restrict access to your shell.
  Execute cgi-shell on your computer:
  cgi-shell -d /cgi-bin/cgi-shell/ -u USERNAME www.yourserver.org
  Replace the directory through the directory you uploaded the files in!
  


• Trying to compile with gcc-2.9* I get the following error:
     main.c: In function `main':
     main.c:69: parse error before `struct'
     main.c:82: `long_options' undeclared (first use in this function)
     main.c:82: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
     main.c:82: for each function it appears in.)
     main.c:192: parse error before `char'
     main.c:202: `ch' undeclared (first use in this function)
     make: *** [main.o] Error 1
  Please use gcc version 3.o or higher.
  


• It does not work for me!
  Tell me what you did and send me the .cgishell* files in your home-directory.
  If you have trouble compiling CGI-Shell please send me the compiler output.
  


• Which rights do I have on the server?
  You have the rights of the owner of cgi-shell-server. Normally user-rights.
  


• Can I do "bad things" with CGI-Shell?
  You can do "bad things" with almost everything - but that is not why I wrote CGI-Shell. Rather, it intends to help webpage-owners to maintain there page comfortably. If CGI-Shell also makes webhosters pay a little more attention to their servers rights-management - or even better - gives you SSH-access, I am happy, too.
  


• How does CGI-Shell work?
  CGI-Shell is client-server-based. When you start cgi-shell, you start a server on your web-server and connect to it - very similar to Telnet or SSH.
  If you want to know it more exactly you have to read the source code. :-)
  


• Is CGI-Shell secure?
  At the moment, CGI-Shell is more like Telnet than like SSH. The password-protection is realized with htaccess - so username and password fly without encryption through the web. Also, all other communication between you and the web-server is not encrypted right now. But I want to change this.
  


• Which operating systems and platforms are supported?
  I did test it with several linux distributions on i386-machines. Ken Mankoff reported, that he compiled it on Mac OS X after commenting out the line "#include <wait.h>".
  If you sucessfully built CGI-Shell on other platforms please let me know!
  


• Under which license is CGI-Shell published?
  GNU General Public License.


• Where to ask more questions? Where can I say, criticize, praise, suggest something?
  Just write me a mail: <michael at binaervarianz dot de>