On Thu, Feb 07, 2008 at 11:46:36AM -0500, Matt Pitts wrote: > I just got advise from mst to not use mod_fcgid in production because it > doesn't support external fastcgi and this is the way to do HA apps. I > wanted to ask some questions and hear some arguments. I know there's > some existing traffic on the list about this, but I thought some fresh > info would be nice. > > We're currently running a Cat app under mod_fcgid in production that > handles about a million hits a day b/t Cat and static files. > > Why did we chose mod_fcgid? Well, I tried playing around with > mod_fastcgi for awhile and had problems getting the config straight - > admittedly due to a lack of knowledge on my part. Then I read some > tidbits about mod_fcgid being "better", so I tried it out and it "just > worked" and has been "just working" ever since. > > Why is it so much better to have fastcgi as an external process? Is it > because this is the only way to realistically to PAR-based deployments? > > What's wrong with having mod_fcgid do its process management.
Because then you restart the FastCGI processes when you restart the web server. With external, you can have - webserver - fastcgi for app version N - fastcgi for app version N+1 all managed separately. that means you can update by - start N+1 - change apache config to point to N+1 - apachectl graceful - stop N which allows you to update with zero downtime - without even dropping a single request on the floor. And if something goes wrong, you can perform the process in reverse just as easily. I consider this essential for heavily-used applications since having a 5+ second window of "mid-upgrade" when the app doesn't respond is a pain in the ass for users. For less heavily used applications I don't care - apache starts the fastcgi handlers for shadowcat.co.uk because it's mostly a news + brochureware type site so a few seconds' downtime every so often really just doesn't matter to us. -- Matt S Trout Need help with your Catalyst or DBIx::Class project? Technical Director http://www.shadowcat.co.uk/catalyst/ Shadowcat Systems Ltd. Want a managed development or deployment platform? http://chainsawblues.vox.com/ http://www.shadowcat.co.uk/servers/ _______________________________________________ List: Catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk Listinfo: http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.scsys.co.uk/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/