Mod FastCGI

mod_fastcgi for SME Server

Description

This contrib provides for the use of mod_fastcgi on SME Server.

About FastCGI

• FastCGI is simple because it is actually CGI with only a few extensions. Like CGI, FastCGI is also language-independent. For instance, FastCGI provides a way to improve the performance of the thousands of Perl applications that have been written for the Web.
• Like CGI, FastCGI runs applications in processes isolated from the core Web server, which provides greater security than APIs. (APIs link application code into the core Web server, which means that a bug in one API-based application can corrupt another application or the core server; a malicious API-based application can, for example, steal key security secrets from another application or the core server.)
• Although FastCGI cannot duplicate the universality of CGI overnight, the FastCGI developers are committed to propagating FastCGI as an open standard. To that end, free FastCGI application libraries (C/C++, Java, Perl, Tcl) and upgrade modules for popular free servers (Apache, ISS, Lighttpd) are available.
• Like CGI, FastCGI is not tied to the internal architecture of any Web server and is therefore stable even when server technology changes. An API reflects the internal architecture of a Web server, so when that architecture changes, so does the API.

Not only does FastCGI restore the strengths of CGI, it also adds two new benefits:

• Distributed computing: Companies can run their FastCGI application on a different machine from the one on which they run their Web server. Distributed computing is a proven technique for scaling, linking to existing corporate systems, improving system availability, and improving security via compartmentalization, such as firewalls.
• Multiple and extensible roles: CGI applications compute the response to an HTTP request. FastCGI applications can do that and more, such as perform modular authentication and authorization checks and translate data from one type to another. FastCGI is designed so that more roles can be introduced in the future.

Installation

This contrib can not be found yet in the SME Contribs repository. To install this contrib get shell access as root user and issue the following command:

Additional information

This contrib only loads mod_fastcgi for the httpd daemon and does not provide other configuration templates or a server-manager panel.

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