(fast)cgi and nginx - there has to be a better way

[Jonathan Vanasco]

On Sep 24, 2008, at 2:55 AM, Aleksandar Lazic wrote:
> Please can you tell me ehat do you mean with 'MovableType'?

MovableType is a  popular line of cms/blog software.  It is written  
in Perl and FCGI compatible.


> Which part of lighty do you use and don't find in nginx, except the  
> cgi
> handling?

At the moment the only thing I care about is the FCGI integration.    
It's not the ability to use FCGI , its the ease of depolying and  
managing apps.

> For perl you can use for example
>
> http://search.cpan.org/~gbjk/FCGI-ProcManager-0.18/ProcManager.pm
> FCGI::ProcManager
>
> and for python, there are a lot of fastcgi / http implementation out
> there.
>
> But yes, the user must adopt, in the most cases the application.

Yes, but my issue isn't with saying "I need to write a FCGI app" -- I  
have an FCGI app.   I actually have a bunch of them... my admin time  
is 10x longer deploying them in an nginx environment right now than a  
lighttpd one.

>> not supporting cgi makes sense, but the barrier to using fcgi with
>> nginx is 'really fucking high' right now.
>
> Depend on the knowledge and the leisure of the user.
>
> If the user can't 'speak' the language in which the script is written,
> yes you are right.
>
> As I written before, it would be great to have a cgi interface but I
> thinkg it is not so easy to develop a secure high traffic cgi  
> interface.

Yes -- depending on the knowledge/leisure of the user.

I've been running nginx for 3 years now - having found it relatively  
'early on' as an alternative to lighttpd leaking memory like a  
sieve.  The most widely recommended php deployment is still the same  
-- install lighttpd and use its spawn-fcgi process.  it's neat that  
the 'smart work' is  already done, but given lighttpd's licensing -  
it would be a much easier admin if that script were just provided as  
part of nginx.

I have a handful of nginx boxes on freebsd and another group on  
ubuntu and RHEL.  because nginx puts off so much more of the fcgi  
config into other apps , as an admin trying to sync up fcgi support  
on the app takes more time because I can't centralize it to the nginx  
install of conf files ( which can easily be handled in version  
control and deployed to many servers )

I don't care about running CGI personally... thought it would be great.

I simply want the integration of running FCGI stuff to be easier  
within nginx -- and running FCGI apps on nginx to be as easy as  
running them under other  servers.
>

// Jonathan Vanasco

w. http://findmeon.com/user/jvanasco
e. jonathan at findmeon.com

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