FormMail 403 Forbidden

[Bonusjump]

Please excuse the probable simplicity of this question; I am just getting my feet wet in the programming world and have hit a stumbling block, which, for others, is probable very simple.

I'm trying to use Matt's FormMail script. When submitting the form in the browser I receive a 403 Forbidden message stating "You don't have permission to access /cgi-bin/FormMail.pl on this server."

I think it is something to do with setting permission.

Could someone give me a friendly pointer in the right direction?

Thank you
Bonus

[Mark_A]

sounds like you may not have fully completed the install of the script, did you chmod it yet?

There is a quite good help section at his scripts archive and may also be on your hosts site.

Beware, lots of folks look to exploit that specific script, its best at least to rename it - then call the renamed script from your forms as that at least stop the most basic auto searches from finding it.

Also install the latest version only and use accepted delivery addresses and domains only otherwise its a spammers honeypot! (forget exact term but a search will find it for you)

Search in here on google for it to find the issues if you are not already aware of them.

hth

[Bonusjump]

Thanks for the tidbits of advice, I appreciate that.

> did you chmod it yet?

No I haven't. I was trying to figure out what that was all about last night but failed miserably. I'm learning a lot but that just went straight over my head.

Gonna have to have an alcohol free evening and try and figure it out.

[EBear]

Bonusjump

If you're using WS_FTP:

Select the file
Right click on it
Choose chmod (Unix)
Check all Reads
Check all Executess
Check Write only for Owner
Click OK
(This shape:
* * *
*
* * *
)

To check it worked:

Click on LogWnd in the buttons at the bottom
The last two lines should read

SITE chmod 755 Formmail.pl
200 Permissions changed on Formmail.pl

(the important part here is the number 755)

AFTER you've got it all up and running and tested and are patting yourself rightly on the back, I would suggest you go through the process again with nms Formmail, also available at Matt's Scripts. This is a more secure, and better performing, version of Formmail with a few nice extra features such as the ability to hide your email address from spammers. It's well documented and just as easy to set up; you'll learn a bit too. For extra security I normally rename it to something random before installing it.

Good Luck.

[Bonusjump]

> Good Luck.
Thank you EBear.

[Wizcrafts]

EBear wrote:

After you've got it all up and running and tested and are patting yourself rightly on the back, I would suggest you go through the process again with nms Formmail, also available at Matt's Scripts.

The MSA website does contain a link to download the NMS script from the MSA site, but it is the original version, not current. I recommend anybody who wants to use the NMS FormMail script to get the latest version directly from NMS, at: [nms-cgi.sourceforge.net...]

Wiz