Well, there's been one request about FastCGI, so here's the scoop:

(1) Get the development kit from http://www.fastcgi.com
Currently, it is http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi-2.2.2.tar.gz

(2) save it to your hp and do the usual:
  gunzip <fcgi-2.2.2.tar.gz | tar xvopf -

In the file libfcgi/os_unix.c, change fcntl to sfcntl each time it's called.

Do this:
CC=gcc \
  CPPFLAGS="-D_POSIX_SOURCE -D_SOCKET_SOURCE" \
  LDFLAGS="-lsocket" ./configure

(You can also use CC=c89)
Then "make".

If you are using C or Perl, you can use the documentation at the FastCGI
website to create programs.  Basically, your programs will look like this:
   initialize (e.g. open datasets)
   while (FCGI_Accept() > 0) {
     process just like normal CGI program
   }
This will loop once for each request.

A program that's compiled for FastCGI can also work as a regular CGI program
(good for testing).

Now, how do you run it as a FastCGI program?
Either (1) use mod_fcgi in apache or (2) use the cgi-fcgi program.

(1) I have not used mod_fcgi because we are running Apache 1.3.9 on MPE/iX
6.0 and it doesn't support DSOs.  Theoretically, it should work with small
changes.

(2) Use cgi-fcgi
You write a tiny forwarding program in cgi-bin, e.g.
#! /APACHE/PUB/cgi-bin/cgi-fcgi -f
-bind -connect localhost:9096

That will forward your cgi requests to a FastCGI program waiting on socket
9096 (Any unused socket # >1024 is okay).

Then, in another job, you run your program with some kind of monitor that
opens the socket then runs your program.  The program 'cgi-fcgi' will also
do this, although you need to make one change for MPE/iX.  You probably want
to have some way to monitor if your program dies unexpectedly and possibly
restart it.  That is something that "cgi-fcgi" does not do, although
mod_fcgi does.

Also, cgi-fcgi does no security checking (mod_fcgi does). If you are running
on an IP socket, especially, you may want to check who connected to you.  I
have not tried using Unix domain sockets.

E.g.
   cgi-fcgi -start -connect localhost:9096 /YOUR/PROGRAM/HERE

Miscellaneous:
  The easiest way to link is to use gcc or c89, including
libfcgi/.libs/libfcgi.a
  For Perl, see FCGI.pm and FCGI-ProcManager  (I haven't tried it)
  For COBOL, I created C stub routines to call from COBOL.  I had to use a C
outer block to get stdio to initialize correctly.  I linked with
     c89 -o testfcgi fcgistub.o testfcgi.o libfcgi/.libs/libfcgi.a -lsocket
where testfcgi.o was a symbolic link to a compiled COBOL object (NMOBJ)
file.


The change to get "cgi-fcgi -start" to work on MPE/iX is:
Change:
        if(!doBind) {
            exit(0);
        } else {
to:
        if(!doBind) {
            int status;
            int errct=0;
            while (wait(&status)> 0 || errno != ECHILD) {
              if (errct++ > 100) {
                exit(1);
              }
            }
            exit(0);
        } else {

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *