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Web Server Mode or CGI Mode?

Installation Modes

$PRODUCT_NAME can run either in web server mode (stand-alone) or in CGI mode. In both modes, you can access $PRODUCT_NAME through a web browser on your desktop.

This section will help you decide whether you want to run $PRODUCT_NAME in "web server mode," or in "CGI mode." In web server mode the installation is easy, $PRODUCT_NAME runs its own web server, and serves statistics using it. CGI mode is better if you want to run $PRODUCT_NAME on a shared web server system, or a system you have only limited access to.

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of web server mode vs. CGI mode:

Advantages of Web Server Mode:

Disadvantages of the Web Server Mode: Advantages of CGI Mode: Disadvantages of CGI Mode: The two different installations are described below:

Web Server Mode Installation

$PRODUCT_NAME needs to be installed differently depending on the platform you intend to run it on:

If you have any problems installing $PRODUCT_NAME in web server mode, please see Troubleshooting Web Server Mode

CGI Mode Installation

To install $PRODUCT_NAME in CGI mode, you will need to extract the $PRODUCT_NAME program, and copy it to your web server's CGI directory.

IMPORTANT: There are different versions of $PRODUCT_NAME for each platform (e.g. Windows, Macintosh, Linux, etc.) and a version designed for one platform will not work on another. In CGI mode, you must install the version of $PRODUCT_NAME that matches your server's platform, not the version that matches your desktop computer. For instance, if you're running Windows at home, and you install $PRODUCT_NAME on your ISP's web server, and the web server is running Linux, you need to install the Linux version of $PRODUCT_NAME on the web server. If you don't know what platform your web server is running, you can find out by asking your ISP or system administrator, if it's a UNIX system, you can also find out by logging in by telnet and typing "uname -a".

Make sure you understand the previous paragraph! And now download the correct version of $PRODUCT_NAME, the one that matches your web server platform. Make sure you do the FTP download in BINARY mode, or $PRODUCT_NAME will not work.

You install $PRODUCT_NAME in CGI mode differently depending on the type of your web server. See {=docs_chapter_link('webservers')=} if you need help finding your cgi-bin directory.