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 $CGI::Fast::VERSION='1.06';
22 # workaround for known bug in libfcgi
23 while (($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;
57 return $CGI::Q = $self->SUPER::new($initializer, @param);
64 CGI::Fast - CGI Interface for Fast CGI
68 use CGI::Fast qw(:standard);
70 while (new CGI::Fast) {
72 print start_html("Fast CGI Rocks");
75 "Invocation number ",b($COUNTER++),
83 CGI::Fast is a subclass of the CGI object created by
84 CGI.pm. It is specialized to work well with the Open Market
85 FastCGI standard, which greatly speeds up CGI scripts by
86 turning them into persistently running server processes. Scripts
87 that perform time-consuming initialization processes, such as
88 loading large modules or opening persistent database connections,
89 will see large performance improvements.
91 =head1 OTHER PIECES OF THE PUZZLE
93 In order to use CGI::Fast you'll need a FastCGI-enabled Web
94 server. See http://www.fastcgi.com/ for details.
96 =head1 WRITING FASTCGI PERL SCRIPTS
98 FastCGI scripts are persistent: one or more copies of the script
99 are started up when the server initializes, and stay around until
100 the server exits or they die a natural death. After performing
101 whatever one-time initialization it needs, the script enters a
102 loop waiting for incoming connections, processing the request, and
105 A typical FastCGI script will look like this:
107 #!/usr/local/bin/perl # must be a FastCGI version of perl!
109 &do_some_initialization();
110 while ($q = new CGI::Fast) {
111 &process_request($q);
114 Each time there's a new request, CGI::Fast returns a
115 CGI object to your loop. The rest of the time your script
116 waits in the call to new(). When the server requests that
117 your script be terminated, new() will return undef. You can
118 of course exit earlier if you choose. A new version of the
119 script will be respawned to take its place (this may be
120 necessary in order to avoid Perl memory leaks in long-running
123 CGI.pm's default CGI object mode also works. Just modify the loop
126 while (new CGI::Fast) {
130 Calls to header(), start_form(), etc. will all operate on the
133 =head1 INSTALLING FASTCGI SCRIPTS
135 See the FastCGI developer's kit documentation for full details. On
136 the Apache server, the following line must be added to srm.conf:
138 AddType application/x-httpd-fcgi .fcgi
140 FastCGI scripts must end in the extension .fcgi. For each script you
141 install, you must add something like the following to srm.conf:
143 FastCgiServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -processes 2
145 This instructs Apache to launch two copies of file_upload.fcgi at
148 =head1 USING FASTCGI SCRIPTS AS CGI SCRIPTS
150 Any script that works correctly as a FastCGI script will also work
151 correctly when installed as a vanilla CGI script. However it will
152 not see any performance benefit.
154 =head1 EXTERNAL FASTCGI SERVER INVOCATION
156 FastCGI supports a TCP/IP transport mechanism which allows FastCGI scripts to run
157 external to the webserver, perhaps on a remote machine. To configure the
158 webserver to connect to an external FastCGI server, you would add the following
161 FastCgiExternalServer /usr/etc/httpd/fcgi-bin/file_upload.fcgi -host sputnik:8888
163 Two environment variables affect how the C<CGI::Fast> object is created,
164 allowing C<CGI::Fast> to be used as an external FastCGI server. (See C<FCGI>
165 documentation for C<FCGI::OpenSocket> for more information.)
169 =item FCGI_SOCKET_PATH
171 The address (TCP/IP) or path (UNIX Domain) of the socket the external FastCGI
172 script to which bind an listen for incoming connections from the web server.
174 =item FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE
176 Maximum length of the queue of pending connections.
182 #!/usr/local/bin/perl # must be a FastCGI version of perl!
184 &do_some_initialization();
185 $ENV{FCGI_SOCKET_PATH} = "sputnik:8888";
186 $ENV{FCGI_LISTEN_QUEUE} = 100;
187 while ($q = new CGI::Fast) {
188 &process_request($q);
193 I haven't tested this very much.
195 =head1 AUTHOR INFORMATION
197 Copyright 1996-1998, Lincoln D. Stein. All rights reserved.
199 This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
200 it under the same terms as Perl itself.
202 Address bug reports and comments to: lstein@cshl.org
206 This section intentionally left blank.