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Common Reasons For Internal Server Errors

By Will Bontrager

In relation to Perl CGI scripts, the Internal Server Error can have any one of a number of different reasons. Here is a short list of the most common:

• Viewing or editing the file with something other than a plain text processor. (NotePad and TextWrangler are examples of plain text processors.) Word processors that are able to format text may insert invisible script-breaking formatting characters even when they're presenting the content as plain text.

  Always view/edit perl CGI files with a plain text processor.

Uploading with something other than FTP software. FTP can correct line ending characters between desktop operating system and what is expected by the operating system the server uses. Non-FTP methods might not convert those characters, which then breaks the script.

Use an FTP program to upload perl CGI script files.

Using FTP, but uploading as a binary file instead of as an ASCII/plain text file. Only when uploaded as a plain text file will the FTP program convert the line endings properly. Your FTP software should have a way to tell it to upload/transfer the file as plain text. ("Automatic" sometimes doesn't work. You might have to tell it specifically to transfer the file as plain text.)

Improper permissions. After a perl CGI script has been uploaded, it needs 755 permissions. That's:

 Owner: read-write-execute
 Group: read-execute
Public: read-execute

(some FTP programs refer to "public" as "world" or "others")

February 28, 2008

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