This document provides instructions for beginner Perl web developers to host a simple dynamic website using Perl and shared hosting. It recommends using Strawberry Perl on Windows, Apache as the web server, and the Mojolicious framework. It includes steps to configure Apache and Mojolicious, add templates, and an .htaccess file to route requests to the Perl application. The templates can include Perl code and are deployed along with the application code via FTP to a shared hosting server.

1. Perl web hosting
for beginners
Árpád Szász
Freelance Perl Developer
Twitter: @arpadszasz
Blog: http://arpi.plenum.ro

2. Background
●
Programming newbie

3. Background
●
Programming newbie
●
Want to host a simple dynamic website

4. Background
●
Programming newbie
●
Want to host a simple dynamic website
●
Process must be easy

5. Background
●
Programming newbie
●
Want to host a simple dynamic website
●
Process must be easy
●
Using Microsoft Windows as a workstation

6. Background
●
Programming newbie
●
Want to host a simple dynamic website
●
Process must be easy
●
Using Microsoft Windows as a workstation
●
Using GNU/Linux on the server side

7. Why use Perl?
●
Perl makes easy things easy and hard things
possible

8. Why use Perl?
●
●
Perl makes easy things easy and hard things
possible
Perl is available by default on every shared
host provider's servers (GNU/Linux)

9. Why use Perl?
●
●
●
Perl makes easy things easy and hard things
possible
Perl is available by default on every shared
host provider's servers (GNU/Linux)
Perl is Modern

10. Why use shared hosting?
●
Inexpensive

11. Why use shared hosting?
●
Inexpensive
●
Easy to setup

12. Strawberry Perl
●
Perl distribution for Windows

13. Strawberry Perl
●
Perl distribution for Windows
●
Available at http://strawberryperl.com/

14. Strawberry Perl
●
Perl distribution for Windows
●
Available at http://strawberryperl.com/
●
Up to date (Perl version 5.16.3)

15. Apache
●
Most popular web server

16. Apache
●
●
Most popular web server
Windows binaries available at
http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

17. Mojolicious
●
Next generation web framework

18. Mojolicious
●
●
Next generation web framework
Easy to deploy (only dependent on core Perl
5)

19. Mojolicious
●
●
Next generation web framework
Easy to deploy (only dependent on core Perl
5)
–
download from
https://github.com/jamadam/mojo-legacy

20. Mojolicious
●
●
Next generation web framework
Easy to deploy (only dependent on core Perl
5)
–
download from
https://github.com/jamadam/mojo-legacy
–
extract lib folder from archive to Apache's htdocs
folder

21. Configuring Apache
●
Allow the use of .htaccess files
<Directory "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/cgi-bin">
AllowOverride All
Options FollowSymlinks
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

22. Configuring Apache
●
Allow the use of .htaccess files
●
Enable mod_rewrite
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so

23. Configuring Mojolicious app
●
Goes into Apache's htdocs folder as app.pl
#!perl
use 5.10.1;
use strict;
use lib qw(lib);
use Mojolicious::Lite;
get '/' => sub {
return shift->render('index');
};
get '/*page' => sub {
my $self = shift;
return $self->render( $self->param('page') );
};
app->start('cgi');

24. Configuring Mojolicious app
●
Goes into Apache's htdocs folder as app.pl
●
Templates go into htdocs/templates
htdocs/templates/index.html.ep
htdocs/templates/contact.html.ep
...

25. Configuring .htaccess file
●
Execute Perl programs as CGI
AddHandler cgi-script .pl
Options +ExecCGI

26. Configuring .htaccess file
●
Execute Perl programs as CGI
●
Route all requests to Mojolicious app
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ app.pl/$1 [L,QSA]

27. Configuring .htaccess file
●
Execute Perl programs as CGI
●
Route all requests to Mojolicious app
●
Deny listing of templates
<FilesMatch ".html.ep">
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
</FilesMatch>

28. Configuring .htaccess file
●
Execute Perl programs as CGI
●
Route all requests to Mojolicious app
●
Deny listing of templates
●
Directory index points to app
DirectoryIndex app.pl

29. Configure templates
Add HTML markup to templates
●
<h1>Welcome!</h1>
<p>
Hello and welcome to our silly website.
</p>

30. Configure templates
●
Add HTML markup to templates
●
Add Perl code to templates
<h1>Welcome!</h1>
<p>
Hello and welcome to our silly website. Server time is: <%= time %>
</p>

31. Deploy
●
Transfer contents of htdocs using FTP to
server

32. Deploy
●
●
Transfer contents of htdocs using FTP to
server
Access the application on the server via CGI

33. Questions?

34. Thank You!
Talk and code available at
https://github.com/arpadszasz/perl-hosting-beginners-talk