How exactly does this site work?
It's really really cool.

What is the index page? It's not index.html or index.php.
You get around by passing a variable to a script that doesn't seem to exist! How did you get the idea to do that? How did you do that?

a1k0n wrote it. The script does exist, you just can't see it.

a1k0n works in mysterious ways. ;)

a1k0n care to enlighten us poor souls?
I really would like to know how you managed that.

just configure apache to route / to the script.

example: if your DirectoryIndex is configured to index.html(which is default), then adding

ScriptAlias /index.html "/var/www/cgi-bin/whatever"

to httpd.conf will make http://<yoursite>/ call the whatever script

yea..

But if that were the case then typing index.html would still show something instead of coming up with a "Not Found" error like this one does...

index.html
index.php
index.blah

all nada...

What is going on?

The index is just set to something else?

Yea, it's not hard, you just set the webserver up to alias / to some other page.

OK... But my point still stands that 'something' would show up!
Maybe not when you first type vendetta.guildsoftware.com. But after that when you click on a link if should show http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/'something'?action=msgboard....
Or maybe not....

Anyway it's cool that it works.

cdgweb, please learn the mystery of life known as Apache mod_rewrite. :)

However, as I recall, the website is NOT run through apache but a custom written server.

Which therefore means that there could be nothing. The entire site could be one giant script.

Quote: "However, as I recall, the website is NOT run through apache but a custom written server."

Not Found
The requested URL /5646 was not found on this server.

Apache/1.3.26 Server at vendetta.guildsoftware.com Port 80

:)

I wish I had time to write a webserver. :P Yes, the directoryindex points to some cgi. It used to be en vogue in the mid-90s to have URLs of the form http://site/?stuff, which is when I wrote this. It's pretty handy, cause I can swap out CGIs and stuff without anyone noticing. I'd much prefer to be using FastCGI, but I haven't bothered to re-write the website in that format yet.

really ? I just think apache is nice and of course well done.
So you wish to had the time to invent the wheel twice ? *g

Ahh my apologies... :) I see.. it's your CGI script that's written in C? or Perl?

AgY: Remember the Unix motto: There's more than one right way to do it.

Can't forget about PHP, my favorite CGI language!

Apache is wonderful for doing everything, and doing it for free. It isn't as efficient as other webserver architectures, such as those used by Zeus (powers Ebay and other major sites), AOLserver (powers members.aol.com) or Litespeed (a newcomer similar to Zeus in some respects). On the "free" front, Boa and thttpd both follow similar lines of thought.

We've been talking about migrating to fastCGI / litespeed for awhile, but have been a bit busy with game stuff. We don't use perl or PHP.

Finally a straight answer. Thanks :)

[quote=a1k0n]
It used to be en vogue in the mid-90s to have URLs of the form http://site/?stuff, which is when I wrote this.
[/quote]

I wasn't surfing the web in the 90s...
Quite honestly this is the first time I've seen a configuration like this, it's really neat.