fastcgi and ISP's -- alternatives?
According to the Zope fastcgi package, it sounds like Zope will only run under a mod_fastcgi snapshot later than 2.2.2. Is this correct? I want to run Zope through fastcgi under apache on my ISP, but I doubt I can convince them to install an unstable snapshot. I've tried pcgi but it's very slow. Is there any work being done on a mod_zope or some other connection method that ISP's would willing run? I don't have the luxury of running my own server but would like to use Zope and unfortunately none of the Zope hosts listed at zope.org seems right for me. Does anyone know of ISP's providing apache/zope with fastcgi? Thanks, Jason
Jason Jones wrote:
According to the Zope fastcgi package, it sounds like Zope will only run under a mod_fastcgi snapshot later than 2.2.2. Is this correct?
It should be easier with 2.2.2. It should work with earlier versions, but you'll have to use mod_rewrite to pass authentication data or let apache do authentication.
I want to run Zope through fastcgi under apache on my ISP, but I doubt I can convince them to install an unstable snapshot. I've tried pcgi but it's very slow. Is there any work being done on a mod_zope or some other connection method that ISP's would willing run?
Do you think that some new mod_zope would be more stable that mod_fastcgi 2.2.2? Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@digicool.com Technical Director (888) 344-4332 Python Powered! Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com http://www.python.org Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.
on 11/19/99 4:49 AM, Jim Fulton at jim@digicool.com wrote:
Jason Jones wrote:
According to the Zope fastcgi package, it sounds like Zope will only run under a mod_fastcgi snapshot later than 2.2.2. Is this correct?
It should be easier with 2.2.2. It should work with earlier versions, but you'll have to use mod_rewrite to pass authentication data or let apache do authentication.
Thanks for the info. The ZAG documentation, specifically the line: "The latest stable version of mod_fastcgi at the time of this writing is 2.2.2. You'll need to either grab one of the latest snapshots or a newer version (if one exists)..." reads as if 2.2.2 won't work and a later version is required. It's good to know this is just an awkward paragraph and not true.
I want to run Zope through fastcgi under apache on my ISP, but I doubt I can convince them to install an unstable snapshot. I've tried pcgi but it's very slow. Is there any work being done on a mod_zope or some other connection method that ISP's would willing run?
Do you think that some new mod_zope would be more stable that mod_fastcgi 2.2.2?
Nope, see above - I thought you were requiring an unstable post-2.2.2 mod_fastcgi.... I will note however that a mod_zope couldn't hurt ISP adoption. I've been calling tons of them and most don't seem willing to deal with anything that isn't standard cgi or compiled into apache, and strangely enough most of them won't do mod_fastcgi either. What Zope could really use is a simple setup like mod_php and a good PR push behind it so that ISP's will take it up. A start might be mod_python or something like that. If I recall correctly, one of the modules for embedding python already has some glue code for Zope (from the 1.10 release). Jason
Jason Jones wrote:
on 11/19/99 4:49 AM, Jim Fulton at jim@digicool.com wrote:
Jason Jones wrote:
According to the Zope fastcgi package, it sounds like Zope will only run under a mod_fastcgi snapshot later than 2.2.2. Is this correct?
It should be easier with 2.2.2. It should work with earlier versions, but you'll have to use mod_rewrite to pass authentication data or let apache do authentication.
Thanks for the info. The ZAG documentation, specifically the line:
"The latest stable version of mod_fastcgi at the time of this writing is 2.2.2. You'll need to either grab one of the latest snapshots or a newer version (if one exists)..."
reads as if 2.2.2 won't work and a later version is required. It's good to know this is just an awkward paragraph and not true.
The ZAG instructions might not work. I assume that they tell you about an option to pass the authentication header. This is the change that was made (for Zope) in 2.2.2.
I want to run Zope through fastcgi under apache on my ISP, but I doubt I can convince them to install an unstable snapshot. I've tried pcgi but it's very slow. Is there any work being done on a mod_zope or some other connection method that ISP's would willing run?
Do you think that some new mod_zope would be more stable that mod_fastcgi 2.2.2?
Nope, see above - I thought you were requiring an unstable post-2.2.2 mod_fastcgi....
I will note however that a mod_zope couldn't hurt ISP adoption. I've been calling tons of them and most don't seem willing to deal with anything that isn't standard cgi or compiled into apache, and strangely enough most of them won't do mod_fastcgi either.
Why? Why would they do mod_zope and not mod_fastcgi? BTW, I assume that you are aware of the commercial FastCGI support at www.fastcgi.org.
What Zope could really use is a simple setup like mod_php and a good PR push behind it so that ISP's will take it up. A start might be mod_python or something like that. If I recall correctly, one of the modules for embedding python already has some glue code for Zope (from the 1.10 release).
If I was an ISP, I'd be wildly more receptive to mod_fastcgi (or mod_pcgi, if it existed) than a module that embedded a perl or python interpreter in the web server. Jim -- Jim Fulton mailto:jim@digicool.com Technical Director (888) 344-4332 Python Powered! Digital Creations http://www.digicool.com http://www.python.org Under US Code Title 47, Sec.227(b)(1)(C), Sec.227(a)(2)(B) This email address may not be added to any commercial mail list with out my permission. Violation of my privacy with advertising or SPAM will result in a suit for a MINIMUM of $500 damages/incident, $1500 for repeats.
If I was an ISP, I'd be wildly more receptive to mod_fastcgi (or mod_pcgi, if it existed) than a module that embedded a perl or python interpreter in the web server.
There is no need to embed a python interpreter in apache. Just write code in C that can pass the object requests through to zope and receive a response that is handed back to the client. It shouldn't be hard to write at all. I stated it once, but I haven't had a chance to finish. The important thing is that the listener on the zope side is multi-threaded so that concurrent requests into apache don't block waiting for a single transaction to process inside zope (this was the way pcgi was working last time I looked). If you had to, you could just rewrite the url and send another http request to zope. If zope supported some kind of persistent connection so the socket didn't have to be opening and closing all the time, it would still be reasonably fast. No worse than a proxy server, anyway. --sam
BTW, I assume that you are aware of the commercial FastCGI support at www.fastcgi.org.
If I was an ISP, I'd be wildly more receptive to mod_fastcgi (or mod_pcgi, if it existed) than a module that embedded a perl or python interpreter in the web server.
Jim
And yet mod_php is wildly popular and a number of sites offer mod_perl as well while mod_fastcgi doesn't seem to interest any of the ISP's (although I have found one that does run it). BTW, while convincing them to use mod_fastcgi seems hard, convincing ISP's to pay for a commercial engine is next to impossible - I tried for months with a similar thing when I needed servlet support and mod_jserv wasn't yet out. I don't have a clue why this is, I'm just pointing it out. What it really comes down to is acceptance and marketing. PHP is marketed pretty well and it has a huge user base partly because it is an extremely easy drop-in for Apache and was easy for ISP's to include, so that anyone can get a cheap account and use it. PHP and MySQL is by far the most popular Unix hosting account combination. Zope is very much on the upswing in the public eye, but as of yet it isn't easy for ISP's to adopt. Granted, it isn't just a language like PHP and will always need special configuration, etc... but given the amount of space devoted on this list to getting Zope running behind pcgi, and now fastcgi, it's no wonder that ISP's aren't terribly interested. If ISP's are going to pick up Zope they need something easy and they need something identified with Zope specifically. mod_php is obviously php, mod_zope would be zope. What the module specifically does (embeds python is actually just fastcgi with an accompanying zope install, etc.,) doesn't seem to be as important as the fact that it is identified directly with Zope and is an easy process. I know this sounds simplistic, but after calling ISP's over the past several weeks it's a conclusion I can't help but come to. Jason
I have only been working with Zope in depth for the last couple of days, and after having one small problem that was ironed out very quickly, I have Zope running using PCGI, and will be rolling it out for testing, as we are a Hosting company who are looking to use Zope, exclusively, as we believe the possiblities are endless. I now have three Virtual Servers running Zope all on the same machine, using the core Zope install, but with seperate data dirs, logs, etc, for each virtual server, it took a bit of tweaking but I have been able to do the complete setup from scratch in under 10 minutes, now that I have all the nuances worked out. Adding virtual servers, takes 30 seconds. With regards to PHP, to get php working properly, can be just as difficult, especially when working with phplib. One has to remember PHP has been around a lot longer, therefor is used in more installations. On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, you wrote:
BTW, I assume that you are aware of the commercial FastCGI support at www.fastcgi.org.
If I was an ISP, I'd be wildly more receptive to mod_fastcgi (or mod_pcgi, if it existed) than a module that embedded a perl or python interpreter in the web server.
Jim
And yet mod_php is wildly popular and a number of sites offer mod_perl as well while mod_fastcgi doesn't seem to interest any of the ISP's (although I have found one that does run it). BTW, while convincing them to use mod_fastcgi seems hard, convincing ISP's to pay for a commercial engine is next to impossible - I tried for months with a similar thing when I needed servlet support and mod_jserv wasn't yet out. I don't have a clue why this is, I'm just pointing it out.
What it really comes down to is acceptance and marketing. PHP is marketed pretty well and it has a huge user base partly because it is an extremely easy drop-in for Apache and was easy for ISP's to include, so that anyone can get a cheap account and use it. PHP and MySQL is by far the most popular Unix hosting account combination.
Zope is very much on the upswing in the public eye, but as of yet it isn't easy for ISP's to adopt. Granted, it isn't just a language like PHP and will always need special configuration, etc... but given the amount of space devoted on this list to getting Zope running behind pcgi, and now fastcgi, it's no wonder that ISP's aren't terribly interested.
If ISP's are going to pick up Zope they need something easy and they need something identified with Zope specifically. mod_php is obviously php, mod_zope would be zope. What the module specifically does (embeds python is actually just fastcgi with an accompanying zope install, etc.,) doesn't seem to be as important as the fact that it is identified directly with Zope and is an easy process.
I know this sounds simplistic, but after calling ISP's over the past several weeks it's a conclusion I can't help but come to.
Jason
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On Thu, 18 Nov 1999, Jim Fulton wrote:
Jason Jones wrote:
According to the Zope fastcgi package, it sounds like Zope will only run under a mod_fastcgi snapshot later than 2.2.2. Is this correct?
It should be easier with 2.2.2. It should work with earlier versions, but you'll have to use mod_rewrite to pass authentication data or let apache do authentication.
2.2.3 which is still in development last time I checked adds the ability to pass the Authentication header directly to Zope. You need this because standard rewrite tricks won't work with mod_fastcgi.
on 11/18/1999 4:26 PM, Scott Robertson at sroberts@codeit.com wrote:
2.2.3 which is still in development last time I checked adds the ability to pass the Authentication header directly to Zope. You need this because standard rewrite tricks won't work with mod_fastcgi.
So, are you saying that using fastCGI 2.2.2 won't work at all, because it won't accept passing of authentication via RewriteRule? Harry
on 11/19/99 3:06 PM, Harry at mail-zope@fizbin.com wrote:
on 11/18/1999 4:26 PM, Scott Robertson at sroberts@codeit.com wrote:
2.2.3 which is still in development last time I checked adds the ability to pass the Authentication header directly to Zope. You need this because standard rewrite tricks won't work with mod_fastcgi.
So, are you saying that using fastCGI 2.2.2 won't work at all, because it won't accept passing of authentication via RewriteRule?
That does seem to be what he is saying. I'm glad he said it too, I almost purchased an account with an ISP that runs 2.2.2 based on Jim's message that it would work. I talked to them... no chance of installing an updated snapshot, so that's out - back to pcgi I guess. Jason
The latest CVS's doc/WEBSERVERS.txt documents using mod_fastcgi with Zope. A SNAP of 2.2.3 is required to follow the instructions given. I haven't tested, but I _think_ that 2.2.2 will work for pages which do not no require authentication. This means that you couldn't use the management interface via FastCGI _unless_ you were using cookie-based authentication. Alternatively, you could have ZServer serving HTTP as well as using FastCGI, and access the management interface via that route. Mike.
participants (7)
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Craig P Avnit -
Harry -
Jason Jones -
Jim Fulton -
Mike Pelletier -
Sam Gendler -
Scott Robertson