need a little help with cgi guestbook

Okay.

I downloaded the guestbook, and followed all the instructions as instructed in the README file. My server host includes a cgi-bin, so I followed the special instructions for that as well.. I set all the CHMOD properties, yet I get an internal server error (500). What am I doing wrong? My server host says that it supports CGI with the latest PERL technology...

Here's the message I get:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, support@supportwebsite.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

You might try the tip here first:

http://www.pagedowntech.com/faq/faq.asp?faqid=24

This should allow your browser to give you a slightly more detailed version about the error.

What guestbook script are you trying to install? Link?

It's the Bigwebmaster guestbook v1.01... from this site...

My apologies, but I haven't played with that one yet. Bigwebmaster -- your turn! *smiles

Do you have access to your server error logs? That would give a more specific explanation on to what is causing the problem. "Internal Server Error" is just a general error and really doesn't tell you much. You might also talk to your host and make sure you are able to run cgi scripts, and make sure its a linux server.

Another thing you can try is changing the extension of .cgi to .pl

Some hosts do not have a handler setup for .cgi extensions, so changing the extension to .pl might get you somewhere.

Have you been able to run any scripts on your server at all? or is the guestbook script the first one you have tried?

the guestbook is the only cgi script I've tried so far... I just upgraded my hosting account to be able to handle cgi scripts... It is a linux server, and there is an actual cgi directory that my host has told me to utilize for cgi scripts...

And I don't have access to my error logs...