This is the Fast CGI model, using pre-forking in something like Apache. Apache creates a new process for each incoming connection, but pre-forks them (so they s

This is the Fast CGI model, using pre-forking in something like Apache. Apache creates a new process for each incoming connection, but pre-forks them (so they sit idle without a connection), and when those processes fire up, Fast CGI starts up the "cgi" program and just waits for the data. After the request, the process and cgi program remain and linger, ready for the next request.