[Geomoose-users] fastcgi vs cgi

Mon Nov 1 14:48:16 EDT 2010

Right..I should have specified a bit more...

FastCGI is a way of enabling a server to kick off and persist an executable through several requests.

In the Geomoose/Mapserver environment that means that a request to ...cgi-bin/mapserv.exe... becomes ...fcgi-bin/mapserv.exe...

When the fastcgi method is used and Geomoose is loaded by the client the first layer requested triggers apache to load mapserv.exe and keep it running for x minutes/seconds.  This instance is used for each of the following layers.  Theoretically this saves time loading mapserv.exe for each and every defined map layer.  In practice, in our environment, we're seeing some nice speed improvements.  Especially noticeable for large dataset display.

Also, mapserver map files can use the PROCESSING "CLOSE_CONNECTION=DEFER" map layer setting.  This causes mapserver to not close the database connection (connection cache) for each layer until after it has finished processing the mapfile.  When using FastCGI this supposedly means the connection is kept open while the mapserv cgi is still open; from map to map.

If correctly enabled on a server, fastcgi is an option.  The normal cgi-bin requests are still possible.

In the geomoose application, it seems only configured in one place...so all requests would be one or the other.  I'm sure there is probably a way to javascript or php a way to direct certain layers to fcgi-bin and others to cgi-bin.  Possibly a meta varialble in the map file?

Why not send all map layers to fastcgi?  I don't know.  I was hoping others who have experimented with fastcgi and geomoose could provide feedback.

My reference to WMS wasn't too clear.  We use ms4w/geomoose tool to provide wms service to other web clients, gis software, and sometimes geomoose itself.  It's not really a geomoose capability..but the map files are all stored in our geomoose app folder structure.  It is Mapserver that really provides the wms.

From: Dan Little [mailto:danlittle at yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 12:02 PM
To: Reynolds, Michael J. (DOT); geomoose-users at lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Geomoose-users] fastcgi vs cgi

GeoMOOSE can use pretty much anything that serves up a WMS.  Of course, FastCGI is really only a way of optimizing MapServer's performance.  Most of GeoMOOSE is static HTML/JS/Images that won't see any benefit from FastCGI and I would not advise putting the PHP into FastCGI as PHP is already run as an Apache module.

You could set certain layers up as FastCGI, there is no limitation in GeoMOOSE.  The only limitation is what you have the time/patience to configure.

From: "Reynolds, Michael J. (DOT)" <Mike.Reynolds at state.mn.us>
To: "geomoose-users at lists.sourceforge.net" <geomoose-users at lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Mon, November 1, 2010 10:58:15 AM
Subject: [Geomoose-users] fastcgi vs cgi
Any comments about geomoose and fastcgi?

It would seem to be that if fastcgi is configured correctly that geomoose could be configured to use it.  Once configured, ALL geomoose layers will be rendered using fastcgi.  Is there a way to set just certain layers to use it?  Is that necessary?

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