CGI and Command Line Scripts

Programs on the server performing actions such as rendering, saving and renaming topics.

These scripts are located in the bin and tools directories. This topic describes the interfaces to some of those scripts. All scripts in the bin directory can be called from the CGI (Common Gateway Interface) environment or from the command line. The scripts in the tools directory can only be called from the command line.

CGI Scripts

Details on CGI scripts located in the bin directory.

Note that a blank in the 'Default' column means that the parameter is not required, and has no default. required means the parameter is required, and has no default. text in italics describes default behaviour if no value is given.

General Information

CGI environment

In the CGI environment parameters are passed to the scripts via the URL and URL parameters. Environment variables are also used to determine the user performing the action. If the environment is not set up, the default user is used (usually guest).

Command-line

You must be have the bin directory on the perl path to run the scripts from the command line.

To avoid issues with file permissions, run the scripts as the web server user such as nobody, www-data or www.
If running scripts under the control of cron, install the crontab under the web server user.

Parameters are passed on the command line using two possible formats:

• Traditional command line "switch" style format: -name value, The "-" prefix for the keyword is required.

$ cd /usr/local/foswiki/bin
$ save -topic MyWeb.MyTopic -user admin -action save -text "New text of the topic"

• Keyword format: parameter=value. A "-" prefix is optional.

$ cd /usr/local/foswiki/bin
$ save topic=MyWeb.MyTopic user=admin action=save text="New text of the topic"

All parameters require a value, even if that is the empty string. Note that parameters passed on the command-line should not be URL-encoded.

Note: If any of the arguments will contain utf-8 strings, (ie. when entering a Unicode topic name), you must run the command using the perlrun argument -CA. For example:

$ cd /usr/local/foswiki/bin
$ perl -CA ./save -topic MyWeb.MyÜtf8Töpic -user admin -action save -text "Text with »Äëïöü« utf8 characters."

For more details on the perl command line arguments, see http://perldoc.perl.org/perlrun.html.

"Authentication" in the command line environment

Unlike the CGI environment, the default user for command line operations is AdminUser.

• The -user parameter is specific to the command line and is not recognized by in the web environment. It allows a user to be specified without requiring that the password be supplied. It is only active from the command line.
• The -username / -password parameters are processed by the authentication system and require the password be authenticated. Depending upon the authentication implementation, it may or may not be usable in the command line environment.

When calling a tools script from the command line, you normally need to be cd'd to the =bin directory e.g.

$ cd bin
$ ../tools/mailnotify -q -nonews -nochanges -Main -System

Context

Each script sets a Foswiki context to signal to plugins and other components the environment that they are running. In addition to the per-script context, two additional contexts are optionally set:

• command_line is set if there is no CGI query object available.
• static is set by scripts that render static content like PDF or other offline publishing tools

A comprehensive list of core context identifiers used by Foswiki is found in the IfStatements#Context_identifiers.

Common parameters

All the scripts accept a number of common parameters. The first two components of the URL after the script name are taken as the web and the topic, respectively. Standard URL parameters are:

Where revision parameters are required, individual versions are identified by positive, non-zero integers. Versions start with 1 and are sequencial. For compatibility reasons, Some scripts accept revision numbers with '1.' (or even 'r1.') prepended to the number, but this usage is deprecated and should be corrected when encountered.

attach

Despite the name, this script doesn't actually attach a file to a topic - for that, use upload. This script is part of the transactions sequence executed when a file is uploaded from the browser. it just generates the "new attachment" page for a topic.

changes

Shows all the changes in the given web.

The changes script can receive one parameter:

The main difference between invoking this script and using WebChanges is that WebChanges is based on a %SEARCH%, while this script reads the changes file in each web, making it much faster.

NOTE: The result from changes script and the topic WebChanges can be different, if the changes file is deleted from a web. In particular, in new installations the changes script will return no results while the WebChanges topic will.

configure

configure is the browser script used for inspection of, and changes to, the site configuration. None of the parameters to this script are useable for any purpose except configure. See configure.

edit

The edit script understands the following parameters, typically supplied by HTML input fields.

A major role of the edit script is new topic creation. Parameters that are mainly relevant to new topic creation are marked with

Parameter name	Description	Default
action	If action=text, then hide the form. If action=form, then hide the normal text area and only edit the form.	edit both
breaklock	If set, any lease conflicts will be ignored, and the edit will proceed even if someone is already editing the topic.
cmd	Admin only features, see below
contenttype	Optional parameter that defines the application type to write into the CGI header. May be used to invoke alternative client applications	text/html
formtemplate	Name of the form to instantiate in the topic. Set to none to remove any existing form.
notemplateexpansion	Do not expand any macros in the template topic. (see New topic creation below)	expand
onlynewtopic	If on, error if the topic already exists	edit existing topic
onlywikiname	If on, error if the name of a topic being created is not a WikiWord	allow non-wikiword names
redirectto	If the user continues from edit to save, and if the save (or cancel) process is successful, save will redirect to this topic or URL. The parameter value can be a TopicName, a Web.TopicName, or a URL. Note: Redirect to a URL only works if it is enabled in configure (Miscellaneous {AllowRedirectUrl}).
rev	Lets you specify a specific revision to use as the basis of the edit.	latest
template	Allows you to specify a different skin template. Overrides any setting of EDIT_TEMPLATE.
templatetopic	The name of the template topic, copied to get the initial content for a new topic. (see New topic creation below)
text	Set the text to be edited. If this parameter is not given, the text is taken from the existing topic (if it exists)
topicparent	Sets the parent topic. Set to none to remove parent. Set to topic name to change parent, leave empty to keep existing parent.	keep existing parent
<any name>	This can be used in two ways; first, if the topic has a form with a field called <any name>, it will set the value of that field. Second, it can be expanded in the topic text during topic creation - see New topic creation below

The following options are only available to the site Administrator. They can "rewrite history" and should be used with caution only when absolutely necessary.

Skin notes:

The EDIT_TEMPLATE preference (or the template parameter) can be used to override the default 'edit' template on a per-web or per-topic basis.

The action parameter works by loading the editform.tmpl or edittext.tmpl templates in place of the standard edit.tmpl. If an EDIT_TEMPLATE has been defined, then it replaces edit, e.g. if EDIT_TEMPLATE=specialed and action=form then the template used will be specialedform

In most skins that are based on the default templates (such as Pattern skin) you can easily change the Edit and Edit WikiText buttons to append the action parameter, by setting the EDITACTION preference to the value text or form (You can always get back to editing the whole topic by removing the action parameter from the URL browser Location window, and reloading the edit window).

New topic creation :

The string AUTOINC followed by one or more digits anywhere in the topic name will be converted to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web. However this doesn't happen until the topic is saved.

When a new topic is created using edit, the topic isn't actually created until the edit is saved. The content of the new topic is initialised according to the parameters you pass.

• templatetopic - defines the full name (web.topic) of a topic to use as a template for the new topic. The template topic is copied and, unless notemplateexpansion is set, the following macros are expanded in the topic text: URLPARAM, DATE, SERVERTIME, GMTIME, USERNAME, WIKINAME, WIKIUSERNAME, USERINFO. (see TopicTemplates)
• text - use this as the text of the topic. Macros are not expanded in this text. Overrides any text set in the templatetopic.
• formtemplate - Overrides any form set in the templatetopic.
• notemplateexpansion - given by templatetopic. Use this when you want a verbatim copy of a topic.
• onlynewtopic and onlywikiname are used to control validation of the new topic name.
• <any name> - besides the form field value setting described above, when creating a new topic, %URLPARAM{" <any name> "}% in the templatetopic will be expanded to the parameter value.

login

Used for logging in with TemplateLoginManager, and for interactive validation of operations that require user confirmation.

logon

Used for logging in when Web Server authentication is being used (e.g. ApacheLoginManager). The script does nothing; it is purely a placeholder for triggering the login process. The webserver must be set up to require a valid user to access this script, thus triggering the webserver login process.

manage

Performs a range of management functions.

action=create

Alternative entry point for creation, via edit, of a new topic, used by screens that support several actions using manage.

Other parameters are the same as for edit.

action=createweb

Create a new web

action=editSettings

No parameters

action=saveSettings

If neither action_save or action_cancel are provided, an oops error is issued. All other parameters may be interpreted as form fields, depending on the current form definition in the topic.

action=bulkRegister

See BulkRegistration.

action=changePassword

Change password, email address, or both, of a user.

password, =passwordA and email are optional. If neither or password and passwordA is set, then the user password is left unchanged. If email is unset, their email is left unchanged.

action=resetPassword

Reset the password for a single or multiple users

This is used by BulkResetPassword and ResetPassword. Only administrators can provide a list of login usernames, non-admins can only provide a single UserName.

BulkRegistration provides the means to create multiple accounts but it does not announce those accounts to the users who own them. BulkResetPassword is used to assign the passwords, the Introduction is used to explain why they are receiving the mail.

action=deleteUserAccount

For non-admin users, it unregisters (removes) the currently logged-in user. Administrators can remove any account.

action=restoreRevision

Alternative entry point for edit, used by screens that support several actions using manage. Parameters are as for =edit.

action=addUserToGroup

add a user / list of users to a group

action=removeUserFromGroup

remove a user / list of users to a group

oops

This script is mainly used for rendering pages containing error messages, though it is also used for some functional actions such as manage pages (move topic etc).

oops templates are used with the oops script to generate system messages. This is done to make internationalisation or other local customisations simple.

The oops script supports the following parameters:

preview

This script is deprecated. Its functions are covered by the save script.

rdiff

Renders the differences between version of a topic

The context parameter is only respected if the back-end store supports context diffs.

register

action=register

Starts the registration process for a new user.

User data is passed in 0 or more parameters of the format FwkNname where Fwk is a standard prefix, N is 0 for an optional parameter and 1 for a required parameter, and name is the parameter name. The following standard Fwk parameters are predefined:

Any additional Fwk parameters will be written to the user topic (except Photo and Confirm).

If registration verification (or registration approval) is enabled in configure, a pending registration record will be created and the registrant (or the approver) will be emailed with the verification code.

If all goes well, then:

• If verification is required, outputs the registration confirmation screen.
• If approval is required, outputs the pending approval screen.
• Otherwise outputs the welcome screen.

When called from CGI, this method requires a POST request.

action=verify

Sent to activate a user's pending registration. Only applicable if registration verification is enabled.

If the verification is successful:

• If approval is required, outputs the pending approval screen.
• Otherwise outputs the welcome screen.

action=approve

Sent to activate a pending registration. Only applicable if registration approval is enabled.

Outputs the welcome screen and mails the successful registrant.

action=disapprove

Sent to deny a pending registration. Only applicable if registration approval is enabled.

Presents a screen where the admin can optionally enter an email message to be sent to the failed registrant. NOTE: the registration fails even if this mail is not sent.

If the code has the value DENIED then the request is interpreted as the second stage of an approval denial. Registration parameters are passed in the URL parameters email, referee, wikiname and =feedback. These parameters are used to compose a feedback mail for the failed registrant.

rename

Used for renaming webs, topics and attachments.

action="renameweb"

Rename a web.

action=renameother

Rename a topic or an attachment.

resetpasswd

This script is deprecated. Its functions are covered by the manage script.

rest

This REST (Representational State Transfer) script can be invoked via http in the same way as the other scripts (see Invocation Examples, below) to execute a function that is associated to a "subject" and a "verb" (see below). These functions are usually registered by plugins using the Foswiki::Func::registerRESTHandler method. The rest script will print the result directly to the browser unless the endpoint parameter is specified, in which case it will output a redirect to the given topic or url.

The rest script supports the following parameters:

REST scripts that require a topic context must use the standard topic parameter to pass the topic name, as the URL path is used to identify the REST function. If not defined, then the topic context in REST handlers will be Main.WebHome.

The function is free to use any other query parameters for its own purposes.

rest authentication

If a REST operation requires a logged-in user but no user is logged in, then it will return a 401 status. In the case of the TemplateLogin login manager, this will include a WWW-Authenticate header starting with FoswikiBasic. This allows the status to percolate through to Javascript where it can be handled by your code. The realm in the WWW-Authenticate header is taken from the {AuthRealm} setting in configure, or the empty string if it is not set.

If you are using TemplateLogin, the preferred way to pass user login information back to the server is to use the X-Authorization HTTP header. This header is modelled on the HTTP Authorization header, as described in http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt, except that the scheme name FoswikiBasic is used instead of Basic. The user-id and password are combined with a : and base64 encoded. For example, if the user agent wishes to send the userid "Aladdin" and password "open sesame", it would use the following header field:

X-Authorization: FoswikiBasic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==

When used with jQuery:

$.ajax({
  beforeSend: function(xhrObj){
    xhrObj.setRequestHeader("X-Authorization",
      "FoswikiBasic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==");
  }
});

The rest script should always be configured to require authentication in any site that is using ApacheLogin. Otherwise there is a risk of opening up major security holes. So make sure you add it to the {AuthScripts} list in configure.

Invocation Examples

The rest script assumes that it will be called with URL in the form:

http://my.host/bin/rest/<subject>/<verb>

where <subject> must be the WikiWord name of one of the installed Plugins, and the <verb> is the alias for the function registered using the Foswiki::Func::registerRESTHandler method. The <subject> and <verb> are then used to lookup and call the registered function. If you need to pass a topic name, then this is passed in the topic URL parameter.

As an example, the EmptyPlugin has registered a function to be used with the rest script under the subject EmptyPlugin and the verb example.

The URL to call this function from a browser would be:

• https://outzenj.com/bin/rest/EmptyPlugin/example?topic=My.TopicName

alternatively, to run it from the commandline:

• cd foswiki/bin ; ./rest /EmptyPlugin/example -topic=My.TopicName

Note that for Plugins to register REST handlers, they must be enabled in configure.

Retrieving passed values

Additional parameters can be recovered via the query object in the $session, for example with the url:

http://my.host/bin/rest/MyPlugin/update?web=foo

The url parameters can be processed using:

my $query = $session->{request};
my $web = $query->{param}->{web}[0];

save

The save script performs a range of save-related functions.

Parameter	Description	Default
action_addform	Redirect to the "change form" page.
action_cancel	exit without save, return to view
action_checkpoint	save and redirect to the edit script, dontnotify is on
action_delRev	Administrators only delete the most recent revision of the topic - all other parameters are ignored. You have to be an administrator to use this, and not all store implementations will support it.
action_preview	preview edited text
action_quietsave	save, and return to view, dontnotify is on
action_replaceform	Redirect from the "change form" page.
action_repRev	Administrators only replace the text of the most recent revision of the topic with the text in the text parameter. text must included embedded meta-data tags. All other parameters are ignored. You have to be an administrator to use this, and not all store implementations will support it.
action_save	default behaviour; save, return to view
dontnotify	if non-0, suppress change notification
edit	The bin script to use to re-edit the topic when action is checkpoint	edit
editaction	When action is checkpoint, add form or replace form..., this is used as the action parameter to the edit script that is redirected to after the save is complete.
editparams	The parameter string to use to edit the topic when action is checkpoint
forcenewrevision	if set, forces a revision even if Foswiki thinks one isn't needed
formtemplate	if defined, use the named template for the form (will remove the form if set to 'none')
newtopic	If templatetopic is given, and this parameter is set to 1 and the topic does not exist, will clear the initial topic text.
onlynewtopic	If set, error if topic already exists
onlywikiname	If set, error if topic name is not a WikiWord
originalrev	Revision on which the edit started.
redirectto	The save process will redirect to this topic or URL if it is successful. (Typically this would be the URL that was being viewed when edit was invoked). The parameter value can be a TopicName, a Web.TopicName, or a URL. Note: Redirect to a URL only works if it is enabled in configure (Miscellaneous {AllowRedirectUrl}).	topic specified in URL path
template	The template to use to re-edit the topic when action is checkpoint
templatetopic	Name of a topic to use as a template for the text and form (new topic only) (see New topic creation above)
text	New text of the topic
topicparent	Sets the parent topic. Set to none to remove parent. Set to topic name to change parent, leave empty to keep existing parent.	keep existing parent
Local+name	create/set a local META:PREFERENCE called name
Set+name	create/set a normal topic META:PREFERENCE called name
Unset+name	remove a META:PREFERENCE call name
Default+name	gives a default for name. If name is set to this value, then the preference will be removed. Requires a corresponding Set+name or Local+name to work.
<any name>	If the topic has a form with a field called <any name>, it will set the value of that field.

Any errors will cause a redirect to another page, either an oops page to report the error, or a login if the save is not authorized.

The string AUTOINC followed by one or more digits anywhere in the topic name will be converted to a number such that the resulting topic name is unique in the target web.

When the action is save, checkpoint, quietsave, or preview:

1. The new text is taken from the text parameter, if it is defined,
   • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if it is defined, (new topic only)
   • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
2. The name of the new form is taken from the formtemplate, if defined
   • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if defined, (new topic only)
   • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
   • otherwise no form is attached.
3. The value for each field in the form is taken from the query, if it is defined
   • otherwise it is taken from the templatetopic, if defined, (new topic only)
   • otherwise it is taken from the previous version of the topic, if any,
   • otherwise it defaults to the empty string.

Merging is only enabled if the topic text comes from text and originalrev is > 0 and is not the same as the revision number of the most recent revision. If merging is enabled both the topic and the meta-data are merged.

Form field values are passed in parameters named 'field' - for example, if I have a field Status the parameter name is Status.

<form name="new" action="%SCRIPTURLPATH{save}%/Sandbox/" method="post">
    ...
</form>

search

This cgi script has been deprecated. When called, it will redirect to the WebSearch topic, and the parameters will be passed on.

statistics

Note: This script is no longer callable using a simple HTTP "GET" operation. It must be called using the POST method using a form.

Refresh the WebStatistics topics in range of webs.

Command line examples: (All run by first changing to the foswiki/bin directory)

Caution: This script writes to foswiki system files. It must be run as the web server user. If ownership of critical system files is changed, it may disrupt the web server!

1. ./statistics updates all user webs, excluding subwebs
2. ./statistics webs=Userweb,Sandbox subwebs=1 updates Userweb and Sandbox including subwebs
3. ./statistics -webs System -autocreate 1 updates System, creating a missing WebStatistics topic if permitted by configuration.

see SiteToolStatistics for more details on WebStatistics, a form you can POST to update statistics, and how to update statistics using cron.

upload

Uploads an attachment to a topic. The HTTP request is expected to be in multipart/form-data format.

Tips

• You can use a tool like curl to upload files from the command line using this script.
• You can call upload easily from XmlHttpRequest in Javascript.
• You can directly invoke upload from the CLI script.__New with Foswiki 2.1__
  • You must use the Perl CLI options '-CA' if the filename or any other arguments contains utf-8 (non-ASCII) characters.
  • ex. Run from the bin directory: perl -CA ./upload filepath="/path/and/filename.dat" filename="Ãttachname.dat" topic=Sandbox.ExistingÜtf8Topic

view

Used for viewing topics.

For historical reasons, the view script has a special interpretation of the text skin. This skin cannot be redefined.

viewfile

Used for viewing attachments. Normally, a site will publish the attachments (pub) directory using a URL. However if it contains sensitive information, you will want to protect attachments using AccessControls. In this case, you can use the viewfile script to give access to attachments while still checking access controls.

Instead of using the filename parameter, you can append the attachment name to the end of the URL path (after the topic) e.g. https://outzenj.com/bin/viewfile/Webname/TopicName/Attachment.gif

Tool Scripts

Details on command line scripts located in the tools directory.

configure

This is a fully functional command line interface to the Foswiki configuration. It is able to set and check configuration values, and to run wizards.

tools/configure [-search] [-getspec] [-getcfg] [-check] [-wizard] [-method] [-save] [-json] [-trace] [-help] [-noprompt] [-expert]

Note: if you need to pass in international characters, it needs to be run with the perl -CA command argument. (perl -CAS when running a new configuration bootstrap)

For full help, run tools/configure -help.

dependencies

Generates a report of missing or all dependencies. This report is also available to administrators at System.PerlDependencyReport

tools/dependencies

Generates a report on the missing dependencies

tools/dependencies -all

Generates a report on all dependencies, installed or missing, along with information on the installation location.

geturl.pl

This is a very simple script to get the content of a web site, either using GET or POST. It is marked as deprecated and might be removed in a future release. Its functions are covered by the standard wget and curl commands, which have the added advantage of performing authentication..

• Usage: geturl.pl <host> <path> [<port> [<header>]]
• Example: geturl.pl some.domain /some/dir/file.html 80
• Will get: http://some.domain:80/some/dir/file.html
• Example: geturl.pl POST some.domain /bin/statistics?webs=Sandbox
• Will post: http://some.domain/bin/statistics?webs=Sandbox triggering a statistics run

rewriteshebang.pl

Simple script to rewrite the #!/usr/bin/perl shebang lines specific to your local Perl installation. It will rewrite the first line of all your cgi scripts so they use a different shebang line. Use it if your perl is in a non-standard location, or you want to use a different interpreter (such as 'speedy').

tick_foswiki.pl

This script executes a number of non-essential regular administration tasks that will help keep your site healthy and happy, such as removing expired sessions and lease files.

It is intended to be run as a cron job or a scheduled task once a week. Example crontab entry:
0 0 * * 0 cd /usr/local/foswiki/bin && perl ../tools/tick_foswiki.pl

Note: The script has to be run by a user who can write files created by the webserver user.

Extensions, such as the MailerContrib, also install tool scripts. Check the documentation of the extension for details.

extension_installer

This script will download and install, or remove an extension.

For more details, execute it from the Foswiki root directory with the usage parameter:

./tools/extension_installer usage

Note that this script is a generic version of the _installer script shipped with each extension. There are 3 ways to install a script using these scripts:

• Download SomePlugin_installer and execute it from the Foswiki root directory
• run ./tools/extension_installer SomePlugin - the extension will be downloaded and installed
• Use the configure web interface to the Extensions Installer.

Related topics: AdminDocumentationCategory, DeveloperDocumentationCategory