[edit] fcgiwrap

So, you want to use CGI. OK! Let's make this as simple as possible for you.

Your reference: http://nginx.localdomain.pl/wiki/FcgiWrap

Some guy made this, and it's amazing. His guide has a few quirks though. I aim to steer you clear from this.

[edit] Install on Debian or Ubuntu

There are packages for Debian and Ubuntu now. Simply type

aptitude install fcgiwrap

Then, have a look at /usr/share/doc/fcgiwrap/README.Debian. There's an example configuration at /usr/share/doc/fcgiwrap/examples/nginx.conf.

What I did was creating a local copy of the example configuration (so it does not get overwritten upon updates)

cp /usr/share/doc/fcgiwrap/examples/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/fcgiwrap.conf

and add it to the the site's configuration in the "server" section with

    # fast cgi support
    include /etc/nginx/fcgiwrap.conf;

The deb package contains an improved init script, which is mirrored here for completeness. After installing the package, also have a look at the HttpFcgiModule documentation or the FcgiExample.

[edit] Manual Install

The first step here is to install this stuff.

If you're on an apt based system:

aptitude install git-core build-essential libfcgi-dev autoconf libtool automake

Get the source:

cd /usr/local/src/
git clone git://github.com/gnosek/fcgiwrap.git

Compile this:

cd /usr/local/src/fcgiwrap
autoreconf -i
./configure
make
mv fcgiwrap /usr/local/bin/

[edit] Setup Scripts

• /etc/init.d/fcgiwrap

Also see the Debian init script here.

#!/usr/bin/perl
 
use strict;
use warnings FATAL => qw( all );
 
use IO::Socket::UNIX;
 
my $bin_path = '/usr/local/bin/fcgiwrap';
my $socket_path = $ARGV[0] || '/tmp/cgi.sock';
my $num_children = $ARGV[1] || 1;
 
close STDIN;
 
unlink $socket_path;
my $socket = IO::Socket::UNIX->new(
    Local => $socket_path,
    Listen => 100,
);
 
die "Cannot create socket at $socket_path: $!\n" unless $socket;
 
for (1 .. $num_children) {
    my $pid = fork;
    die "Cannot fork: $!" unless defined $pid;
    next if $pid;
 
    exec $bin_path;
    die "Failed to exec $bin_path: $!\n";
}

Don't forget chmod +x /etc/init.d/fcgiwrap.

• /etc/rc.local

I decided not to try to make an overly complicated init script and sit with the simple one. I just added "sudo -u www-data /etc/init.d/fcgiwrap" to /etc/rc.local before the exit 0 line.

[edit] What Happens

The sudo command will launch the fcgiwrapper init script as the www-data user. The script bings a listener thread to /tmp/cgi.sock. This is what you need to use in fastcgi_pass. "fastcgi_pass unix:/tmp/cgi.sock;"