ricaldrich.com Web Hosting allows CGI to be used on all Servers. CGI can be resource intensive however, and because a Server may be shared with other users, we must limit how much of the CPU can be used by any one account on a server. There are several reasons why ricaldrich.com Web Hosting has created its CGI Abuse policy for its users:

What does ricaldrich.com Web Hosting consider "CGI ABUSE"?
Any site whose CGI programs are using excessive amounts of system resources. Excessive amounts is defined as any amount that adversely effects normal server performance or service to other ricaldrich.com Web Hosting customers. ricaldrich.com Web Hosting is the sole determinant of what constitutes adverse server performance.

• Due to their use of flat files instead of databases, ricaldrich.com Web Hosting does not allow the use of UBB or YABB bulletin boards. Use of these boards for forums, results in system performance degradation, and cannot be allowed in our server environment. ricaldrich.com Web Hosting suggests using VBulletin or phpBB as a more efficient, database-driven alternative to these bulletin boards.
• ricaldrich.com Web Hosting does not allow chat rooms, however you can however link your site to a chat provider. Some examples of chat providers are: www.humanclick.com, www.liveperson.com, and www.livehumanhelp.com.

Why does ricaldrich.com Web Hosting have this policy?
A server may be shared, and as such, there may be many accounts per machine. In all fairness, ricaldrich.com Web Hosting cannot allow one or two clients to monopolize the System resources on a shared machine and have all other clients on the machine suffer because of it. Excessive CPU usage by one or more clients causes extreme slowness in all areas: FTP, Telnet, Web Sites and more. If the CPU usage gets too far out of hand, all sites hosted on the machine will return Errors and become inaccessible.

What happens if I violate this policy?
All accounts that are found to using excessive amounts of system resources will receive an email warning from ricaldrich.com Web Hosting. This warning will inform you that there is too much CGI process running and it will provide options for reducing the usage or upgrading your Service. If you do not reduce the usage within 24 hours of the email being sent, your CGI scripts will be disabled and you may be billed for time spent on corrective action.