Environment Variables available to XSSI commands

The page below lists many of the environment variables that are usually generated by an http request. These variables vary greatly between platforms, servers and server versions. If you know of more, please let me know so I can add them. All of the following variables can be referenced in XSSI commands.

This chart is in order by Function. Another one is available in an Alphabetical listing.

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Information about the Browser (client)

HTTP_ACCEPT

The MIME types which the client will accept, as given by HTTP headers ("Accept:"). Other protocols may need to get this information from elsewhere. Each item in this list should be separated by commas as per the HTTP spec.
Format: type/subtype, type/subtype
Example: image/gif, image/x-xbitmap, image/jpeg, image/pjpeg, image/png, */*

HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET

Contains the contents of any "Accept-Charset:" headers supplied by the client.
Example: iso-8859-1,*,utf-8

HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE

Contains the contents of any "Accept-Language:" headers supplied by the client.
Example: en

HTTP_CONNECTION

Usually set to 'Keep-Alive' by browsers that support sending more than one file in a single client/server connection.
Example: Keep-Alive

HTTP_COOKIE

Contains the contents of any "Cookie:" header supplied by the client.

HTTP_FROM

The e-mail address of the user making the request. Most browsers do not support this variable. This variable is often user-definable on the browser side and my not reflect reality.

HTTP_HOST

Contains the contents of the "Host:" header supplied by the client. This should contain the one of the aliases for the host on which the server is running. It should be the hostname from the URL that the client is requesting. Thus a client seeking http://www.serverhost.com:8000/foo.html should supply "www.serverhost.com" in this header. Many browsers do not do this. It is required in HTTP/1.1.
Example: www.powertalk.com

HTTP_REFERER

The URL of the document that the client displayed which linked to the address of the current request. Contains the contents of the "Referer:" header from the client.
Example: http://www.powertalk.com/rosso/cgi-bin/printenv.cgi?huh

HTTP_USER_AGENT

Contains the contents of the "User-Agent:" header supplied by the client. This is supposed to contain the name of the browser which the client is using to make this request.
Example: Mozilla/3.0 (Macintosh; I; PPC)

PATH_INFO

The extra path information, as given by the client. In other words, scripts can be accessed by their virtual pathname, followed by extra information at the end of this path. The extra information is sent as PATH_INFO. This information should be decoded by the server if it comes from a URL before it is passed to the CGI script.

REMOTE_ADDR

The IP address of the remote host (client or proxy) making the request.
Example: 198.105.63.8

REMOTE_HOST

The hostname making the request. If the server does not have this information, it should be set equivilent to REMOTE_ADDR.
Example: ppp-61-7.majorisp.net

REMOTE_IDENT

If the HTTP server supports RFC 931 identification, then this variable will be set to the remote user name retrieved from the server. Usage of this variable should be limited to logging only.

REMOTE_PORT

This variable will be set to the port number that created the request on the client.
Example: 1634

REMOTE_USER

If the server supports user authentication, and the script is protected, this is the username they have authenticated as.

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Information about the Time and Date

DATE_GMT

The current date in Greenwich Mean Time.

DATE_LOCAL

The current date in the local time zone.

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Information about the Server (Host)

AUTH_TYPE

If the server supports user authentication, and the script is protected, this is the protocol-specific authentication method used to validate the user.
Example: "Basic" or "Digest"

DOCUMENT_ROOT

The directory from which Web documents are served.
Example: /disk3/powertalk/users/rosso/public_html

GATEWAY_INTERFACE

The revision of the CGI specification to which this server complies.
Format: CGI/revision
Example: CGI/1.1

SERVER_ADMIN

The e-mail address of server's administrator.
Example: webmaster@bad-seed.org

SERVER_NAME

The server's hostname, DNS alias, or IP address as it would appear in self-referencing URLs.
Example: www.powertalk.com

SERVER_PORT

The port number to which the request was sent. Most often '80'
Example: 80

SERVER_PROTOCOL

The name and revision of the information protcol this request came in with.
Format: protocol/revision
Example: HTTP/1.0

SERVER_SOFTWARE

The name and version of the information server software answering the request (and running the gateway).
Format: name/version
Example: Apache/1.3.3 (Unix) (Red Hat/Linux)

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Information about the Document (Requested URL or File)

CONTENT_LENGTH

The length of the content as given by the client for a POST. The length is an ASCII string representing the number of bytes.

CONTENT_TYPE

For queries which have attached information, such as HTTP POST and PUT, this is the content type of the data.

DOCUMENT_NAME

The filename (excluding directories) of the document requested by the user.

DOCUMENT_URI

The (%-decoded) URL path of the document requested by the user. Note that in the case of nested include files, this is not the URL for the current document!

LAST_MODIFIED

The last modification date of the document requested by the user.

PATH

Example: /bin:/usr/bin:/usr/etc:/usr/ucb

PATH_TRANSLATED

The server provides a translated version of PATH_INFO, which takes the path and does any virtual-to-physical mapping to it.

QUERY_STRING

The information which follows the ? in the URL which referenced this script. This is the query information. It should not be decoded in any fashion. This variable should always be set when there is query information, regardless of command line decoding.
Example: search=name+find=smith

REQUEST_METHOD

The method with which the request was made. For HTTP, this is "GET", "HEAD", "POST", etc.
Example: POST

REQUEST_URI

The virtual path of the document requested. This is the directory and filename request that comes after the domain name in a URL.
Example: /rosso/xssi/background/environmentvars.shtml

SCRIPT_FILENAME

A physical path to the script being executed.
Example: /export/home/rosso/public_html/cgi-bin/printenv.cgi

SCRIPT_NAME

A virtual path to the script being executed, often used for self-referencing URLs.
Example: /rosso/cgi-bin/printenv.cgi

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