Shell Programming and Scripting

I think you misunderstand my suggestion. Simply install and configure Apache. Once you have it up and running and serving static pages, you can add a simple CGI script to accept custom POST queries from your clients. If that's fast enough for you, you're done. If it's too slow, look into normal CGI optimization techniques. Only if that fails, try to write any server code of your own.

Another thing: Before you delve into that, do check whether the simple forking server in man perlipc is fast enough for you. Apache comes with a tool called apachebench (ab) which lets you stress-test servers under extreme loads.

Era,

Thanks for all your suggestions. But I am a little confused at the end of all this, I am sorry. Let me try explaining my real problem again.

I will be running processes simultaneously on MANY machines. Each of these processes has an output that I want to look at, at one central location. I cant have them write to seperate files in one location to prevent load on the file server. So what do you think is the best way to achieve this?

Regards,
garric

I don't think I can tell you anything you don't already know, but let's review the situation.

You want a client/server architecture: a server accepts incoming connections from the clients, and stores the information they submit when they connect. The server can be a simple program which merely accepts incoming connections, reads whatever the clients submit, and stores it to a file, then disconnects. Similarly, the clients can simply open a connection, dump a report, and disconnect.

The sample code you find in the perlipc manual page can do this, but if you have performance demands, it might not be enough. Then it's probably better to go look for a server architecture which is designed for heavy concurrency. Apache has a good reputation in this regard, although you can look for others, too. You'll just need to figure out a way to make it do what you want. A simple CGI script is a good way to make Apache do something different than just serve up static web pages.

Are you following so far? So my suggestions at this point would be to test the "simple forking server" you find in man perlipc and measure whether it performs well enough. If it doesn't, see if you can make Apache suit your needs.

Ok thanks. So looking at my needs, I have decided that making Apache suit our needs is the way to go. Now, I needed help on exactly how to go about this? If you lead me to specific docs on the same, I will try taking this forward.

Regards,
garric

Do you have basic familiarity with CGI? Write a simple CGI script to accept a POST from a client.

Yes, I am familiar with the basics. But all my CGI programming has been related to the web. How do I pass and accept parameters when there is no HTML involved?

Regards,
garric