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Asked: 2026-05-11T08:08:21+00:00

The code #!/usr/bin/env python import MySQLdb print Content-Type: text/html print print <html><head><title>Books</title></head> print <body>

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The code

#!/usr/bin/env python  import MySQLdb  print 'Content-Type: text/html' print  print '<html><head><title>Books</title></head>' print '<body>' print '<h1>Books</h1>'  print '<ul>'  connection = MySQLdb.connect(user='me', passwd='letmein', db='my_db') cursor = connection.cursor() cursor.execute(“SELECT name FROM books ORDER BY pub_date DESC LIMIT 10”)  for row in cursor.fetchall():     print '<li>%s</li>' % row[0]  print '</ul>'  print '</body></html>'  connection.close()

I saved it as test.cgi to my web server. I run it by http://www.mysite.com/test.cgi unsuccessfully

Internal Server Error  The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

How can you solve the problem?

[edit] after the first answer

  1. test.cgi is executable (I run $ chmod +x test.cgi)
  2. I use Apache.
  3. I have this in .bashrc export PATH=${PATH}:~/bin
  4. Python module MySQLdb is installed.
  5. The code does not have smart quotes.

[edit] after the second answer

you’re getting that error because you haven’t installed the MySQLdb module that Python needs to talk to a MySQL database

I installed MySQLdb to my system. The module works, since I can import them. However, I still get the same error whet I go to the http://www.[mysite].com/test.cgi.

[edit]

I am not sure about the questions

Are the connect() parameters correct? Is MySQL running on localhost at the default port?

I run MySQL on my server. Is the question about the connect() parameters relevant here?

Is the SELECT statement correct?

You mean whether I have my SQL statements such as SELECT statement correct? I have not used any SQL queries yet. Do I need them here?

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1 Answer

  1. Any number of issues can cause the error you are seeing:

    1. Is test.cgi executable (chmod 755) on the server?
    2. Is the directory in which you placed test.cgi designated as a ScriptAlias location or have the ExecCGI option enabled (or equivalent if you’re not using Apache)?
    3. Is python in the system PATH or in the PATH in the Web server’s startup environment?
    4. Is the MySQLdb Python library installed?
    5. Are the connect() parameters correct? Is MySQL running on localhost at the default port?
    6. Is the SELECT statement correct?

    If you’re sure that python is found (test using the simplest possible script or by logging into the Web server if you can and typing which python) then you can get much better debug output by adding the following to the top of your script just below the shebang:

    import cgitb cgitb.enable()

    More details: http://docs.python.org/library/cgitb.html

    Additionally, if you have shell access to the Web server, try running python and just typing:

    >>> import MySQLdb

    If the command returns with no error, you have your answer for #4 above. If an error is printed, you will need to get MySQLdb installed into the Web server’s Python installation.

    EDIT: Looking more closely at the top of your question, I see that the code was scraped from an illustrative example at the very beginning of the Django Book. As such, I might expand #5 above to include the caveat that, of course, the requisite database, tables, user, and permissions need to be set up on the MySQL installation available to the Web server.

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