A Simple CGI Wrapper Script

Author:

Steven Monai

Last Updated:

2006/01/26

Introduction

This document presents a simple shell script that can be used to „wrap“ the MapServer CGI, in order to avoid having to specify the ‚map‘ parameter (or any other chosen parameters) in your MapServer URLs.

Warnung

Using a wrapper script is inefficient as it implies spawning two processes (shell+mapserv) instead of only one (mapserv), and should not be used on production installations. Refer to Changing the Online Resource URL for examples of how to setup similar functionality directly by using webserver configuration options.

Script Information

If you want to avoid having to specify the ‚map‘ parameter in your MapServer URLs, one solution is to use a „wrapper“. Basically, a wrapper is a CGI program that receives an incoming CGI request, modifies the request parameters in some way, and then hands off the actual processing to another CGI program (e.g. MapServer).

The following shell scripts are wrappers for CGI GET requests that should be generic enough to run on any OS with /bin/sh.

Alternative 1

#!/bin/sh
MAPSERV="/path/to/my/mapserv"
MS_MAPFILE="/path/to/my/mapfile.map" exec ${MAPSERV}

You should set the MAPSERV and MS_MAPFILE variables as appropriate for your configuration. MAPSERV points to your MapServer executable, and MS_MAPFILE points to the mapfile you want MapServer to use. Both variables should be absolute file paths that your webserver has permission to access, although they need not (and probably should not) be in web-accessible locations. Put the script in your web server’s cgi-bin directory, and make it executable.

This solution should support both GET and POST requests.

Alternative 2

#!/bin/sh
MAPSERV="/path/to/my/mapserv"
MAPFILE="/path/to/my/mapfile.map"
if [ "${REQUEST_METHOD}" = "GET" ]; then
  if [ -z "${QUERY_STRING}" ]; then
    QUERY_STRING="map=${MAPFILE}"
  else
    QUERY_STRING="map=${MAPFILE}&${QUERY_STRING}"
  fi
  exec ${MAPSERV}
else
  echo "Sorry, I only understand GET requests."
fi
exit 1
# End of Script

You should set the MAPSERV and MAPFILE variables as appropriate for your configuration. MAPSERV points to your MapServer executable, and MAPFILE points to the mapfile you want MapServer to use. Both variables should be absolute file paths that your webserver has permission to access, although they need not (and probably should not) be in web-accessible locations. Then put the script in your web server’s cgi-bin directory, and make it executable.

Although this script only sets the ‚map‘ parameter, it is easily modified to set any number of other MapServer parameters as well. For example, if you want to force your MapServer to ‚map‘ mode, you can simply add ‚mode=map‘ to the front of the QUERY_STRING variable. Just remember to separate your parameters with ampersands (‘&‘).

Finally, note that the script only works for GET requests.