Sorry in advance for this Gemini-centric log... Could someone explain to me what "CGI" is in the context of Gemini / Gemini servers?
1 year ago · 👍 justyb, eph, know
Perfect!! Thank you so much everyone! · 1 year ago
funny enough, Gemipedia is itself implemented as a CGI
the easiest way to think about is that most early web servers (and Gemini servers) served files. you sent a request for /bar/ foo.html or /xkcd/index.gmi and those were actual files on the disk. The server reads the contents of the file and returns it. CGI allows is the server to say “ instead of opening a file, I’m going to run a program and return its output to the user, as if it was a file“. this allows you to make simple
interactive services. · 1 year ago
In that Gemipedia page, just replace web server with Gemini server. But basically provides a means for a Gemini server to pass variables to some program, and that program can read the variables and then do something with that. So you could have a python script, shell script, C program, Rust program, or really whatever read those things the server passes and then pass back some sort of text that will act as the response. · 1 year ago
Common Gateway Interface. Check it out at Gemipedia: gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view?Common%20Gateway%20Interface · 1 year ago
Or maybe just where I might find some information on it? · 1 year ago