CGI/networking

[Steve Holden]

"Mohamed Najmeddine" <mnajmeddine at geo.census.gov> wrote in message
news:mailman.982342354.21385.python-list at python.org...
> Hello,
> I'm trying to create a web interface. The users should be able to execute
> the cgi scripts that will access their CDROM drive and check the files
that
> the CD contains and compared that list to a file installed on the
WEBSERVER
> (on a different machine UNIX). My problem is how to get the cgi script
> access the hard drive of the PC users. If anyone could point me to the
right
> direction, I would appreciate it. (Do I need to use Sockets... and are
> modules that would facilitate my job)
> Thanks,
> Med.
>
>
This would depend on either:

a) Delivering active content (Javascript/VBScript/Java) to the client, and
having it execute, examine the filestore, and return results to the web
server, or

b) Having a network process on the client listening for connections from
your cgi agent, and again returning results.

In short, much effort has been expended to (try to) ensure that such
solutions are not available. Active content is normally prevented
frommanipulating the client filestore for security reasons. You could modify
your clients to allow such access in various ways, but all of them represent
fairly nasty security holes.

regards
 Steve