spawn-fcgi(1) [debian man page]
spawn-fcgi(1) General Commands Manual spawn-fcgi(1) NAME
spawn-fcgi - Spawns FastCGI processes SYNOPSIS
spawn-fcgi [options] [ -- <fcgiapp> [fcgi app arguments]] spawn-fcgi -v spawn-fcgi -h DESCRIPTION
spawn-fcgi is used to spawn remote and local FastCGI processes. While it is obviously needed to spawn remote FastCGI backends (the web server can only spawn local ones), it is recommended to spawn local backends with spawn-fcgi, too. Reasons why you may want to use spawn-fcgi instead of something else: * Privilege separation without needing a suid-binary or running a server as root. * You can restart your web server and the FastCGI applications without restarting the others. * You can run them in different chroot()s. * Running your FastCGI applications doesn't depend on the web server you are running, which allows for easier testing of other web servers. OPTIONS
spawn-fcgi accepts the following options: -f <path> Filename of the FastCGI application to spawn. This option is deprecated and it is recommend to always specify the application (absolute path) and its parameters after "--"; the fcgiapp parameter is directly used for the exec() call, while for starting the binary given with -f /bin/sh is needed (which may not be available in a chroot). This option is ignored if fcgiapp is given. -d <path> Change the current directory before spawning the application. -a <address> IPv4/IPv6 address to bind to; only used if -p is given too. Defaults to "0.0.0.0" (IPv4). -p <port> TCP port to bind to; you cannot combine this with the -s option. -s <path> Path to the Unix domain socket to bind to; you cannot combine this with the -p option. -C <children> (PHP only) Number of children to spawn by setting the PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN environment variable. Default is not to overwrite the envi- ronment variable; php will spawn no children if the variable is not set (same as setting it to 0). -F <children> Number of children to fork, defaults to 1. This option doesn't work with -n, have a look at multiwatch(1) if you want to supervise multiple forks on the same socket. -P <path> Name of the PID file for spawned processes (ignored in no-fork mode) -n No forking should take place (for daemontools) -M <mode> Change file mode of the Unix domain socket; only used if -s is given too. -?, -h General usage instructions -v Shows version information and exits The following options are only available if you invoke spawn-fcgi as root: -c <directory> Chroot to specified directory; the Unix domain socket is created inside the chroot unless -S is given. -S Create Unix domain socket before chroot(). -u User ID to change to. -g Group ID to change to. Defaults to primary group of the user given for -u. -U Change user of the Unix domain socket, defaults to the value of -u. (only used if -s is given) -G Change group of the Unix domain socket, defaults to the primary group of the user given for -U; if -U wasn't given, defaults to the value of -g. (only used if -s is given) SEE ALSO
svc(8), supervise(8), see http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html multiwatch(1), see http://cgit.stbuehler.de/gitosis/multiwatch/about/ 26 March 2009 spawn-fcgi(1)
Check Out this Related Man Page
CGI::Fast(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide CGI::Fast(3pm) NAME
CGI::Fast - CGI Interface for Fast CGI SYNOPSIS
use CGI::Fast qw(:standard); $COUNTER = 0; while (new CGI::Fast) { print header; print start_html("Fast CGI Rocks"); print h1("Fast CGI Rocks"), "Invocation number ",b($COUNTER++), " PID ",b($$),".", hr; print end_html; } DESCRIPTION
CGI::Fast is a subclass of the CGI object created by CGI.pm. It is specialized to work well FCGI module, which greatly speeds up CGI scripts by turning them into persistently running server processes. Scripts that perform time-consuming initialization processes, such as loading large modules or opening persistent database connections, will see large performance improvements. OTHER PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
In order to use CGI::Fast you'll need the FCGI module. See http://www.cpan.org/ for details. WRITING FASTCGI PERL SCRIPTS
FastCGI scripts are persistent: one or more copies of the script are started up when the server initializes, and stay around until the server exits or they die a natural death. After performing whatever one-time initialization it needs, the script enters a loop waiting for incoming connections, processing the request, and waiting some more. A typical FastCGI script will look like this: #!/usr/bin/perl use CGI::Fast; &do_some_initialization(); while ($q = new CGI::Fast) { &process_request($q); } Each time there's a new request, CGI::Fast returns a CGI object to your loop. The rest of the time your script waits in the call to new(). When the server requests that your script be terminated, new() will return undef. You can of course exit earlier if you choose. A new version of the script will be respawned to take its place (this may be necessary in order to avoid Perl memory leaks in long-running scripts). CGI.pm's default CGI object mode also works. Just modify the loop this way: while (new CGI::Fast) { &process_request; } Calls to header(), start_form(), etc. will all operate on the current request. INSTALLING FASTCGI SCRIPTS
See the FastCGI developer's kit documentation for full details. On the Apache server, the following line must be added to srm.conf: AddType application/x-httpd-fcgi .fcgi FastCGI scripts must end in the extension .fcgi. For each script you install, you must add something like the following to srm.conf: FastCgiServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -processes 2 This instructs Apache to launch two copies of file_upload.fcgi at startup time. USING FASTCGI SCRIPTS AS CGI SCRIPTS
Any script that works correctly as a FastCGI script will also work correctly when installed as a vanilla CGI script. However it will not see any performance benefit. EXTERNAL FASTCGI SERVER INVOCATION
FastCGI supports a TCP/IP transport mechanism which allows FastCGI scripts to run external to the webserver, perhaps on a remote machine. To configure the webserver to connect to an external FastCGI server, you would add the following to your srm.conf: FastCgiExternalServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -host sputnik:8888 Two environment variables affect how the "CGI::Fast" object is created, allowing "CGI::Fast" to be used as an external FastCGI server. (See "FCGI" documentation for "FCGI::OpenSocket" for more information.) FCGI_SOCKET_PATH The address (TCP/IP) or path (UNIX Domain) of the socket the external FastCGI script to which bind an listen for incoming connections from the web server. FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE Maximum length of the queue of pending connections. For example: #!/usr/local/bin/perl # must be a FastCGI version of perl! use CGI::Fast; &do_some_initialization(); $ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH} = "sputnik:8888"; $ENV{FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE} = 100; while ($q = new CGI::Fast) { &process_request($q); } CAVEATS
I haven't tested this very much. AUTHOR INFORMATION
Copyright 1996-1998, Lincoln D. Stein. All rights reserved. This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. Address bug reports and comments to: lstein@cshl.org BUGS
This section intentionally left blank. SEE ALSO
CGI::Carp, CGI perl v5.18.2 2014-01-06 CGI::Fast(3pm)