Web Standards: Custom CGI Scripts
Important Web Policies
- Active Server Pages: ASP
- Custom CGI Scripts
- House.gov Privacy Policy
- Publish a Non-House Developed Site
- Security Checklist (HISPUB 007.1.56) (PDF)
- Web Vendor Contract Agreement (PDF)
- Domain Name Policy (House IT Policy 003.0) (PDF)
- Vendor agreement update (Transition Policy 111-5) (PDF)
- Web video on Member websites
- Members’ Congressional Handbook (Web Sites)
- Committees’ Congressional Handbook (Web Site Regulations)
- Use of campaign material
Web Dear Colleagues (PDFs)
- 2009 FY10 Appropriation Requests
- 2006 House Blog Utility
- 2006 Use of Campaign Funds & Resources
- 2005 Helping Victims of Hurricane Katrina
- 2005 Helping Victims of Hurricane Katrina (attachment)
- 2004 Web Services Vendors
- 2003 E-mail & Subscriber List Policies
- 2003 Support Our Troops Web Sites
Policy
The primary Web mission for the House is to provide a secure, reliable environment to host Member and Committee Web sites. It is imperative that the CAO maintain control over the development and deployment of CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts to succeed in this mission. Incorrectly written CGI scripts may subject Web servers to performance degradation, denial of service or security risks. In turn, these risks would threaten all sites hosted on the server. CGI scripts will be reviewed for accuracy before being installed. All CGI scripts which run on CAO-maintained Web servers must be installed and maintained by CAO staff.
Follow these Procedures to Request Custom CGI Scripts
House Web site managers should discuss their CGI requirements with Web Solutions prior to developing any server side scripts. The table below displays the process Web Solutions will follow when evaluating scripts. For the text version of this process see items 1 through 3 below the table.
Does a similar Web Solutions script exist? |
|||
| No | Yes | ||
| Is such a script useful to all House Web sites? | Web Solutions will help the office use existing scripts. | ||
| Yes | No | ||
| Are there sufficient resources available within CAO to create a new script? | |||
| Yes | No | ||
| CAO will develop, test and deploy the new script. | |||
| Office may develop script themselves or through vendors. | |||
- No support will be provided for the development of scripts whose function is similar to existing House scripts. Web Solutions will help the Member's office to use the script that has already been developed or approved for use on House Web sites.
- Web Solutions will determine if a new script would be useful to all House Web sites if a similar script has not already been approved or developed.
- If it is determine that the requested script would not be useful to other House Web sites, the Member office may develop the script themselves or contract with outside vendors.
- The completed script must be submitted to Web Solutions for a security review before being used on a House Web site.
- Web Solutions will determine whether sufficient resources are available to develop such a script if the script is useful to all House Web sites.
- If sufficient resources are available CAO will develop, test and deploy the new script for use on all House Web sites.
- If sufficient resources are not available, the Member office may develop the script themselves or contract with outside vendors. The completed script must be submitted to CAO for a security review before being used on a House Web site.
Definitions
CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface. An industry standard for browser interactivity.
An Executable Directory is a directory on a web server where CGI scripts are installed. Only CAO staff can maintain executable directories. Individual House office web directories on CAO-maintained servers are configured to be non-executable.
