CGI index files

[teedoff]

Downloaded the Zoom software and tested it on a simple php site I have. Worked great!
Now what I really need is to create a site index on a static html site. I assume I would have to do that with the CGI option. I tried this on another site, but when I went to upload the indexed files via ftp, it gave me an error that it couldn't connect to the remote server with the ftp account. My username and password and host are all correct. Maybe its because CGI bins usually have to be set to accept executable files? DOnt know for sure as I am very new to this, so any tips and help would be great! Thanks in advance!

[David]

Even if your site is a static HTML based site, then the server might still support PHP. And so you can use the PHP option in Zoom, which is easier to install than the CGI option (as you have already noted).

I don't think the FTP error is related to the use of the CGI. It is much more likely that your login details were not correct, the site was down, there was a problem with your internet connection, or something like that.

If once you get past the FTP login issue, you want to continue with the CGI option, see this FAQ for common problems and solutions,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/support/faq_cgi.html

[Ray]

Check with your hosting company for the site in question, whether they support PHP or ASP before you presume otherwise. It should be mentioned on their hosting plan details, if not, contact them. You can also find out yourself by following the FAQ here:
Q. What is PHP, ASP, CGI or JavaScript? How do I determine which one I should use?

If your host does not offer you PHP or ASP support (which even the cheapest hosting companies do these days), it is even less likely they would offer something as intricate (but powerful) as the ability to run binary CGI executables.

[teedoff]

Hi thanks for the info. I wanted to test the CGI version because eventually I will be installing this to a site that potentually has 1000's of pages. The purchased version of Zoom that is. Anyway, I am testing the CGI version on a smaller site now, 40 pages I guess, and I can see several files in my cgi-bin forlder. I just dont know where to go from here. I tested the PHP version and of course all I had to do was style the search results page to my site. I didnt have to create a form or anything to point to the index files. I have looked through the documentation, but either I didnt see it, or just not bright enough to figure out on my own..lol If you could point me to a walk through on how to configure a CGI search function, that would be great!

[teedoff]

Yes Ray I have all those options, but like I said, I thought if you had quite a lot of pages, that CGI was the best and fastest way to create the search feature. Thanks for the help.

[David]

See this FAQ for common problems and solutions with the CGI install,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/support/faq_cgi.html

The process varies depending on if you are using Apache or IIS.

Both the search.cgi "script" (it isn't really a script, but we'll call it a script anyway), and all the index files (xxxx.zdat) need to be in the cgi-bin folder. This assumes you are hosting on Apache. If you are hosting on IIS then a special cgi-bin folder is not required.

The process also depends on if you are running on Windows or Linux or something else. You need to set execute permissions on the CGI.

The FAQ above covers a lot of this.

Like the PHP option you don't *have to* create search form. Running the CGI will produce a form, like in PHP.

[teedoff]

Ok got it working with cgi-bin folder. However, this is a data driven website that I'm testing Zoom on and I was wondering is there a way to index databases? It's a MySQL database and the site is written in Coldfusion. The only thing I can see that was indexed was plain text from the pages.

This wouldn't be an issue on the site that I will eventually be purchasing this product for, since that site is a static site, but for now I would like to get it working with this dynamic site so I can test the software fully.

[David]

Dynamic sites are supported as long as you are using Spider mode.

If you have pages built from your database content, it should just work.

If you have a database content that is only in the database, and not visible on any page, then you might need to make some additional dynamic pages to expose the content.

See also this FAQ
Q. How can I use Zoom to index my site stored in a database (eg. SQL, Access, etc.)?

[teedoff]

Well pretty much every product is pulled from a database, but if you go to my search page and click enter without typing something in the search form, then all records are returned. So if I were to run the index again, in spider mode as I have always done so far, why wouldnt it spider and index results.cfm and find all the products listed there. In fact, if you type that page directly in the browser, the page comes up with all the records in the database. So I would think it would index them all. It doesnt appear to be doing this though. I'll keep playing around with it though. Thanks for all the help.

[Ray]

You should probably see this FAQ:
Q. I am indexing with spider mode but it is not finding all the pages on my web site

Without seeing the site in question, it is difficult for us to tell you exactly what is wrong. But the above FAQ lists some common reasons such as the fact that the links are not spider friendly, etc. Or it could be a configuration issue and they are being skipped. This would be reported in the "Log" tab of the Indexer if you enable "Skipped" messages to be displayed.

[webddragon]

Hi Ray,

I read the faq's but dont find what I need...
I know this will be a stupid question but I need to now.
How do you make a connection to the script...

This is what I use (real):

<form method="get" action="http://search.namha.ca/cgi-bin/search.cgi">
<input type="text" name="zoom_query" size="50" />
<input type="submit" value="Search" />

Do i need anything else...

All my zdat and searh.cgi are in cgi-bin with 755 perm

Trying to resolve 500 issues... with my servers
I know it will be something stupid but it's driving me insane...:=)
I just want to make sure I do all the first thing right...

Thanks for your time

Dan

[David]

See this FAQ for common problems and solutions with the CGI install,
http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/support/faq_cgi.html
The FAQ covers the "500" server side error.

But error 500 is just a general error message generated by your web server that means something has gone wrong on the server. There are about a dozen different possible causes.

Depending on your web server, there might be more details in the server log file.