CONTENTS

• NAME
• FastCGI Deployment
  • Pros
    • Speed
    • App Server
    • Load-balancing
    • Multiple versions of the same app
    • Can run with threaded Apache
    • Widely supported.
  • Cons
    • More complex environment
  • Standalone FastCGI Server
• WEB SERVERS
  • Apache
  • nginx
  • lighttpd
  • Microsoft IIS
• AUTHORS
• COPYRIGHT

#NAME

Catalyst::Manual::Deployment::FastCGI - Deploying Catalyst with FastCGI

#FastCGI Deployment

FastCGI is a high-performance extension to CGI. It is suitable for production environments, and is the standard method for deploying Catalyst in shared hosting environments.

#Pros

#Speed

FastCGI performs equally as well as mod_perl. Don't let the 'CGI' fool you; your app runs as multiple persistent processes ready to receive connections from the web server.

#App Server

When using external FastCGI servers, your application runs as a standalone application server. It may be restarted independently from the web server. This allows for a more robust environment and faster reload times when pushing new app changes. The frontend server can even be configured to display a friendly "down for maintenance" page while the application is restarting.

#Load-balancing

You can launch your application on multiple backend servers and allow the frontend web server to perform load-balancing among all of them. And of course, if one goes down, your app continues to run.

#Multiple versions of the same app

Each FastCGI application is a separate process, so you can run different versions of the same app on a single server.

#Can run with threaded Apache

Since your app is not running inside of Apache, the faster mpm_worker module can be used without worrying about the thread safety of your application.

#Widely supported.

FastCGI is compatible with many server implementations, not just Apache.

#Cons

You may have to disable mod_deflate. If you experience page hangs with mod_fastcgi then remove deflate.load and deflate.conf from mods-enabled/

#More complex environment

With FastCGI, there are more things to monitor and more processes running than when using mod_perl.

#Standalone FastCGI Server

In server mode the application runs as a standalone server and accepts connections from a web server. The application can be on the same machine as the web server, on a remote machine, or even on multiple remote machines. Advantages of this method include running the Catalyst application as a different user than the web server, and the ability to set up a scalable server farm.

To start your application in server mode, install the FCGI::ProcManager module and then use the included fastcgi.pl script.

$ script/myapp_fastcgi.pl -l /tmp/myapp.socket -n 5

Command line options for fastcgi.pl include:

-d -daemon     Daemonize the server.
-p -pidfile    Write a pidfile with the pid of the process manager.
-l -listen     Listen on a socket path, hostname:port, or :port.
-n -nproc      The number of processes started to handle requests.

See below for the specific web server configurations for using the external server.

#WEB SERVERS

Any web server which supports FastCGI should work with Catalyst. Configuration recipes for well-known web servers are linked below, and we would welcome contributions from people deploying Catalyst on other web servers.

#Apache

Catalyst::Manual::Deployment::Apache::FastCGI

#nginx

Catalyst::Manual::Deployment::nginx::FastCGI

#lighttpd

Catalyst::Manual::Deployment::lighttpd::FastCGI

#Microsoft IIS

Catalyst::Manual::Deployment::IIS::FastCGI

#AUTHORS

Catalyst Contributors, see Catalyst.pm

#COPYRIGHT

This library is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

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