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+[[!meta title="CGI scripts will soon require the executable bit"]]
+If you write custom scripts on scripts.mit.edu, you will need to be
+aware of an important new requirement: we will soon require the
+**UNIX executable bit** to be set on your scripts. This affects
+scripts written in any language other than PHP. This is a standard
+requirement on UNIX systems, but due to a technical quirk of the
+original scripts.mit.edu design, it has not been enforced on
+scripts.mit.edu up to this point. Therefore, you may need to adjust
+the executable bit on some of your scripts.
+
+We currently plan to implement this change on Saturday, Nov. 8,
+2008.
+
+## What you need to do
+
+Make sure that the executable bit is set on any script that will be
+run on the scripts.mit.edu servers. You can check this on Athena,
+using a command similar to the following:
+
+    athena% ls -l /mit/andersk/web_scripts
+    -rwxr-xr-x  1    39270 anders     115 2008-03-14 19:11 test.cgi
+    -rw-r--r--  1    39270 anders      79 2008-04-23 22:22 test2.cgi
+
+The bit to look for is the \91x\92 in the fourth column. In this
+example, test.cgi has the executable bit set, and test2.cgi does
+not. You can fix test2.cgi as follows:
+
+    athena% chmod +x /mit/andersk/web_scripts/test2.cgi
+    athena% ls -l /mit/andersk/web_scripts
+    -rwxr-xr-x  1    39270 anders     115 2008-03-14 19:11 test.cgi
+    -rwxr-xr-x  1    39270 anders      79 2008-04-23 22:22 test2.cgi
+
+## Version control
+
+If your custom script is in a version control repository, you may
+additionally want to ensure that this change to the executable bit
+is recorded in the repository.
+
+-   For Subversion, run
+        svn propset svn:executable ON file.cgi
+
+    and then make a commit.
+-   For CVS, make a forced commit by running:
+        cvs commit -f -m "" file.cgi
+
+-   Git will automatically detect the change when you git add the
+    file.
+
+## Technical details
+
+In the original scripts.mit.edu design of 2004, the AFS kernel
+module was modified so that the scripts.mit.edu servers would see
+every file as having the executable bit turned on. This was
+necessary because every page\97including static content pages like
+HTML files and JPG images\97was executed as a CGI script, using the
+Linux binfmt mechanism. It soon became clear that this mechanism
+had a fundamental security problem, so it was redesigned, but the
+AFS patch was kept for backwards compatibility.
+
+However, the nonstandard semantics of the executable bit have been
+increasingly interfering with certain applications on
+scripts.mit.edu, such as the popular Git revision control system.
+We have therefore decided to disable it after a short transitional
+period.
+
+We are collecting logs of scripts that are being executed without a
+proper executable bit, and we will contact the owners of any
+affected scripts that we find. If your custom scripts are
+infrequently accessed, you may need to test them yourself using the
+directions above.
+
+
+