3 # See the bottom of this file for the POD documentation. Search for the
6 # You can run this file through either pod2man or pod2html to produce pretty
7 # documentation in manual or html file format (these utilities are part of the
8 # Perl 5 distribution).
10 # Copyright 1995,1996, Lincoln D. Stein. All rights reserved.
11 # It may be used and modified freely, but I do request that this copyright
12 # notice remain attached to the file. You may modify this module as you
13 # wish, but if you redistribute a modified version, please attach a note
14 # listing the modifications you have made.
16 $CGI::Fast::VERSION='1.07';
22 # workaround for known bug in libfcgi
23 while (($ignore) = each %ENV) { }
25 # override the initialization behavior so that
26 # state is NOT maintained between invocations
31 # If ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH} is specified, we maintain a FCGI Request handle
32 # in this package variable.
33 use vars qw($Ext_Request);
35 # If ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH} is given, explicitly open the socket,
36 # and keep the request handle around from which to call Accept().
37 if ($ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH}) {
38 my $path = $ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH};
39 my $backlog = $ENV{FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE} || 100;
40 my $socket = FCGI::OpenSocket( $path, $backlog );
41 $Ext_Request = FCGI::Request( \*STDIN, \*STDOUT, \*STDERR,
46 # New is slightly different in that it calls FCGI's
49 my ($self, $initializer, @param) = @_;
50 unless (defined $initializer) {
52 return undef unless $Ext_Request->Accept() >= 0;
54 return undef unless FCGI::accept() >= 0;
58 return $CGI::Q = $self->SUPER::new($initializer, @param);
65 CGI::Fast - CGI Interface for Fast CGI
69 use CGI::Fast qw(:standard);
71 while (new CGI::Fast) {
73 print start_html("Fast CGI Rocks");
76 "Invocation number ",b($COUNTER++),
84 CGI::Fast is a subclass of the CGI object created by
85 CGI.pm. It is specialized to work well with the Open Market
86 FastCGI standard, which greatly speeds up CGI scripts by
87 turning them into persistently running server processes. Scripts
88 that perform time-consuming initialization processes, such as
89 loading large modules or opening persistent database connections,
90 will see large performance improvements.
92 =head1 OTHER PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
94 In order to use CGI::Fast you'll need a FastCGI-enabled Web
95 server. See http://www.fastcgi.com/ for details.
97 =head1 WRITING FASTCGI PERL SCRIPTS
99 FastCGI scripts are persistent: one or more copies of the script
100 are started up when the server initializes, and stay around until
101 the server exits or they die a natural death. After performing
102 whatever one-time initialization it needs, the script enters a
103 loop waiting for incoming connections, processing the request, and
106 A typical FastCGI script will look like this:
108 #!/usr/local/bin/perl # must be a FastCGI version of perl!
110 &do_some_initialization();
111 while ($q = new CGI::Fast) {
112 &process_request($q);
115 Each time there's a new request, CGI::Fast returns a
116 CGI object to your loop. The rest of the time your script
117 waits in the call to new(). When the server requests that
118 your script be terminated, new() will return undef. You can
119 of course exit earlier if you choose. A new version of the
120 script will be respawned to take its place (this may be
121 necessary in order to avoid Perl memory leaks in long-running
124 CGI.pm's default CGI object mode also works. Just modify the loop
127 while (new CGI::Fast) {
131 Calls to header(), start_form(), etc. will all operate on the
134 =head1 INSTALLING FASTCGI SCRIPTS
136 See the FastCGI developer's kit documentation for full details. On
137 the Apache server, the following line must be added to srm.conf:
139 AddType application/x-httpd-fcgi .fcgi
141 FastCGI scripts must end in the extension .fcgi. For each script you
142 install, you must add something like the following to srm.conf:
144 FastCgiServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -processes 2
146 This instructs Apache to launch two copies of file_upload.fcgi at
149 =head1 USING FASTCGI SCRIPTS AS CGI SCRIPTS
151 Any script that works correctly as a FastCGI script will also work
152 correctly when installed as a vanilla CGI script. However it will
153 not see any performance benefit.
155 =head1 EXTERNAL FASTCGI SERVER INVOCATION
157 FastCGI supports a TCP/IP transport mechanism which allows FastCGI scripts to run
158 external to the webserver, perhaps on a remote machine. To configure the
159 webserver to connect to an external FastCGI server, you would add the following
162 FastCgiExternalServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -host sputnik:8888
164 Two environment variables affect how the C<CGI::Fast> object is created,
165 allowing C<CGI::Fast> to be used as an external FastCGI server. (See C<FCGI>
166 documentation for C<FCGI::OpenSocket> for more information.)
170 =item FCGI_SOCKET_PATH
172 The address (TCP/IP) or path (UNIX Domain) of the socket the external FastCGI
173 script to which bind an listen for incoming connections from the web server.
175 =item FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE
177 Maximum length of the queue of pending connections.
183 #!/usr/local/bin/perl # must be a FastCGI version of perl!
185 &do_some_initialization();
186 $ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH} = "sputnik:8888";
187 $ENV{FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE} = 100;
188 while ($q = new CGI::Fast) {
189 &process_request($q);
194 I haven't tested this very much.
196 =head1 AUTHOR INFORMATION
198 Copyright 1996-1998, Lincoln D. Stein. All rights reserved.
200 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
201 it under the same terms as Perl itself.
203 Address bug reports and comments to: lstein@cshl.org
207 This section intentionally left blank.