mod_cgi for nginx - anyone?

[Igor Sysoev]

On Sat, Feb 07, 2009 at 03:21:23AM -0800, mike wrote:

> On Feb 7, 2009, at 2:57 AM, Igor Sysoev <is at rambler-co.ru> wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, Feb 07, 2009 at 02:33:09AM -0800, mike wrote:
> >
> >>On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 2:16 AM, Igor Sysoev <is at rambler-co.ru> wrote:
> >>
> >>>nginx is not general purpose server, it's rather highload server.
> >>>CGI is not compatible with highload: if you run Apache/CGI, then CGI
> >>>will became bottleneck much earlier than Apache.
> >>>
> >>>There are two ways to implement CGI inside nginx:
> >>>
> >>>1) simple one: just fork()ing worker process that has received a  
> >>>request
> >>>for CGI and exec() a CGI program. It's simple enough, but has a lot
> >>>of overhead. Besides CGI programs will run with worker privilege  
> >>>only.
> >>
> >>and it requires the CGI program to be modified, yeah?
> >
> >No.
> 
> Got any urls for examples then?

No, as I know there is no attempts to implemnet this in nginx.

This CGI support is the same as in lighttpd/thttpd/etc: they have
single process that fork()/exec() CGI program.

> >>>2) complex way: to run a special CGI manager (probably with root  
> >>>privilege
> >>>as master process) and to pass it requests/sockets using Unix  
> >>>domain sockets.
> >>>Then the manager can fork/exec CGI programs with required privileges
> >>>and with minimal overhead to nginx workers.
> >>>
> >>>The second way will require some time to program, but the outcome  
> >>>will
> >>>be much similar like just proxying to mini_httpd
> >>>( http://acme.com/software/mini_httpd/ ).
> >>
> >>this is like starting out with something like php-fpm, and morphing
> >>into a small httpd?
> >
> >No, the special CGI manager is a nginx process that fork()ed by  
> >master nginx
> >process (like worker processes). The communication protocol between
> >workers and the manager is not HTTP: a worker starts to handle a  
> >request,
> >then it sees that the request should be handled by CGI, something like
> >
> >     location /mailman/ {
> >          cgi_script  ...;
> >          cgi_user    ...;
> >          ...
> >     }
> >
> >and pass the request and client socket to the manager.
> >
> >>>BTW, it seems that using Apache with several worker processes  
> >>>(2-5) for
> >>>bugzilla, mailman, etc. will not consume much CPU/memory: look top.
> >>
> >>I'm just looking at it from simplifying the system administration.
> >>
> >>I know it is not the most performant, those tools are not my  
> >>preferred
> >>ones, I just have to support hosting them right now...
> >
> >I understand this, but currently nginx has more priority tasks.
> >
> 
> Sure. So it isn't impossible if someone else was hired to do it. I was  
> wondering if there was a technical reason for it.

No, there is no technical reason that does not allow to implement CGI
in nginx, this is wasting time only (from my point of view :).

> On a different note, I've paid someone to implement mod_auth_gss (more  
> or less) into nginx. So it might support kerberos tickets and single  
> sign on soon (at least SPNEGO)


-- 
Igor Sysoev
http://sysoev.ru/en/