3 ms·

I'm loving the spirit if not the snark, but it's still odd OpenBSD's httpd (not to be confused with Apache httpd) calls it's CGI gateway "slowcgi" (and kindof d

I'm loving the spirit if not the snark, but it's still odd OpenBSD's httpd (not to be confused with Apache httpd) calls it's CGI gateway "slowcgi" (and kindof derides CGI programming). I mean, it being slow is entirely the fault of the O/S isn't it ?: And using C gets a whole level more challenging with long-running processes and async I/O because of manual memory management. Native CGI programming IMHO is best enjoyed with a reverse cache if you can help it, such as with Apache's mod_cache.

notaplumber 8y ago
It's slowcgi.. you know, as opposed to fastcgi. It's just a name. It was implemented so that httpd(8) didn't have to support executing CGI programs itself and could speak only FastCGI. You don't /have/ to use it, but it's safer. http://man.openbsd.org/slowcgi http://man.openbsd.org/slowcgi
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  I was referring to the release announcement back in 2014 or so which I'm unfortunately not able to find (there was more than a bit snarkiness towards CGI programming). I'm aware what FastCGI is ;) Btw. if you're interested in native HTTP I'd be looking into nghttp2 rather than FastCGI and OBSD's httpd. Edit: see also https://ef.gy/fastcgi-is-pointless https://ef.gy/fastcgi-is-pointless and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202039 (previous discussion of OBSD's httpd)
  - bigato 8y ago
    how can i trust a lib which still uses openssl in this day and age?
ekr 8y ago
It's slow because of its design, i.e. spawning a new process for each request; so it's not because of the OS.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  I'm not sure that sentence makes much sense though since the O/S is responsible for creating processes after all. There's an inherent overhead in the POSIX process model; but there's also overhead in the kind of manual memory management needed in support for evented I/O considering typical mixed web server workloads.
ben_bai 8y ago
httpd(8) only supports the FastCGI protocol. If you want to run your "legacy" CGI programs you need a wrapper. The chosen name for this wrapper is slowcgi(8). CGI always spawns off an new process for each request, and always was slow compared to FastCGI, so slowcgi(8) seems like a good name.
jeremyjh 8y ago
Is there an OS in which spawning a new process is not relatively expensive (relative to forks and thread pools)?

notaplumber 8y ago

It's slowcgi.. you know, as opposed to fastcgi. It's just a name. It was implemented so that httpd(8) didn't have to support executing CGI programs itself and could speak only FastCGI. You don't /have/ to use it, but it's safer. http://man.openbsd.org/slowcgi http://man.openbsd.org/slowcgi

tannhaeuser 8y ago
I was referring to the release announcement back in 2014 or so which I'm unfortunately not able to find (there was more than a bit snarkiness towards CGI programming). I'm aware what FastCGI is ;) Btw. if you're interested in native HTTP I'd be looking into nghttp2 rather than FastCGI and OBSD's httpd. Edit: see also https://ef.gy/fastcgi-is-pointless https://ef.gy/fastcgi-is-pointless and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9202039 (previous discussion of OBSD's httpd)
- bigato 8y ago
  how can i trust a lib which still uses openssl in this day and age?

ekr 8y ago

It's slow because of its design, i.e. spawning a new process for each request; so it's not because of the OS.

tannhaeuser 8y ago
I'm not sure that sentence makes much sense though since the O/S is responsible for creating processes after all. There's an inherent overhead in the POSIX process model; but there's also overhead in the kind of manual memory management needed in support for evented I/O considering typical mixed web server workloads.

ben_bai 8y ago

httpd(8) only supports the FastCGI protocol. If you want to run your "legacy" CGI programs you need a wrapper. The chosen name for this wrapper is slowcgi(8). CGI always spawns off an new process for each request, and always was slow compared to FastCGI, so slowcgi(8) seems like a good name.

jeremyjh 8y ago

Is there an OS in which spawning a new process is not relatively expensive (relative to forks and thread pools)?