[mapguide-users] Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi server. [No Viruses detected]

Trevor Wekel trevor.wekel at autodesk.com
Thu Nov 16 13:24:23 EST 2006


Hi Tom,

Increasing these registry values may help.  I have not debugged the
fastcgi teardown/startup in detail to see exactly what happens.  As
such, I cannot make any guarantees.  But this is likely one of the few
configuration settings which may have an impact.

If it does help, please let us (the list) know.

Thanks,
Trevor 

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Chadwin [mailto:tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk] 
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 4:21 AM
To: users at mapguide.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [mapguide-users] Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi
server. [No Viruses detected]

Hi Trevor

Many thanks for the detailed explanation. Without wishing to sound
ungrateful, can you help me out with ways to alleviate the symptom? I've
tried upping the values of the FastCGI registry keys STARTSERVERS and
INCREMENTSERVERS. Is this likely to help?

Thanks again

Tom




Tom Chadwin
ICT & Web Development Officer
Telephone: 01434 611530
Mobile: 
Fax: 01434 611677
Email: tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk
Web : www.Northumberland-national-park.org.uk
<http://www.Northumberland-national-park.org.uk>

<http://www.northumberland-national-park.org.uk/> 
 
________________________________________________________________________
____
IMPORTANT NOTICE - Disclaimer - November 16, 2006 - REF
Email-200611-00045831.

If you have received this e-mail in error or wish to read our e-mail
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accept liability for any such matters or their consequences. Anyone who
communicates with us by e-mail is taken to accept the risks in doing so.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
not necessarily represent those of NNPA.Contractors or potential
contractors are reminded that a formal Order or Contract is needed for
NNPA to be bound by any offer or acceptance of terms for the supply of
goods or services Although this email and any attachments are believed
to be free of any virus or other defects which might affect any computer
or IT system into which they are received, no responsibility is accepted
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or use thereof. Computer systems of this Authority may be monitored and
communications carried out on them recorded, to secure the effective
operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.
-----Original Message-----
From: Trevor Wekel [mailto:trevor.wekel at autodesk.com]
Sent: 15 November 2006 19:42
To: Chris Gountanis; users at mapguide.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [mapguide-users] Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi
server. [No Viruses detected]

Hi Chris, Hi Tom,

MapAgent.exe and php-cgi.exe are both CGI and FastCGI applications.
They can be configured to function as standalone CGI apps or as longer
lifetime FastCGI apps.  As part of the performance optimization for
MapGuide we chose to use FastCGI.

When configured as regular CGI apps, process loading and initialization
becomes a significant part of the execution time.  For PHP, the entire
API definition of approximately 130 classes and 1400 methods has to be
registered with the PHP runtime.  This is lot of memory allocation and
initialization.  The Mapagent loads/initializes faster but it still
takes time.  Incurring 200+ milliseconds of overhead for a 10
millisecond HTTP request was very performance restrictive.

Mapagent.exe and php-cgi.exe also connect to MapGuide Server through
TCP/IP.  When run as regular CGI's, these processes can exhaust the
ephemeral ports on both Windows and Linux.  From what I remember, the
default port pool on Windows is around 3000 ports and they stay in a
TIME_WAIT state for 4 minutes after they are closed.  A request rate of
around 12 requests per second for 4 minutes is sufficient to completely
exhaust the ephemeral ports on the server.  Once this happens, no new
TCP/IP connections will be accepted for any process running on the
machine.  Under some of our internal load tests, I could force this
condition in about 30 seconds.  When run as FastCGI apps, the Mapagent
and php-cgi reuse existing connections to the server which completely
avoids this problem. 

Isapi_fcgi.dll is an IIS extension for handling FastCGI applications.
With the default setups, both Mapagent.exe and php-cgi.exe run under
this IIS extension.  The Mapagent.fcgi file is just a placeholder.  It
makes it easier to configure either a FastCGI or regular CGI Mapagent
without having to change any URLs.  For FastCGI, Mapagent.fcgi redirects
to isapi_fcgi.dll which then calls a running mapagent.exe process.  For
regular cgi mapagent.fcgi just redirects to mapagent.exe.


It is possible to configure the Mapagent and php-cgi.exe as regular CGI
apps.  Initially, MapGuide was configured that way.  But there will be a
performance hit and the default settings for TCP/IP may need to be
adjusted to avoid ephemeral port exhaustion.


Thanks (for reading all this),

Trevor
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Gountanis [mailto:cgountanis at mpower-tech.com]
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 10:50 AM
To: users at mapguide.osgeo.org
Subject: RE: [mapguide-users] Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi
server. [No Viruses detected]

With that being said is there a better way to setup the IIS/PHP config
in IIS. I was told be a few people that they had to change the PHP and
FCGI handlers manually after the fact. Why are PHP pages handled with
the isapi_fcgi.dll file and not the php-cgi.exe file? What is the big
diff from using mapagent.fcgi or using MapAgent.exe directly. What is
the fcgi file actually redirecting to?


--
Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Chadwin [mailto:tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:37 AM
To: users at mapguide.osgeo.org
Subject: [mapguide-users] Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi
server.
[No Viruses detected]

Hello all

I get the following error message intermittently in my W2K3/IIS/PHP
application:

Server Error, unable to connect to fastcgi server.

A refresh often gets rid of the problem. I can't find anything in the
Windows event logs. Can anyone point me towards finding the cause of
this problem?

Thanks

Tom



Tom Chadwin
ICT & Web Development Officer
Telephone: 01434 611530
Mobile: 
Fax: 01434 611677
Email: tom.chadwin at nnpa.org.uk
Web : www.Northumberland-national-park.org.uk
<http://www.Northumberland-national-park.org.uk>

<http://www.northumberland-national-park.org.uk/> 
 
________________________________________________________________________
____
IMPORTANT NOTICE - Disclaimer - November 14, 2006 - REF
Email-200611-00045249.

If you have received this e-mail in error or wish to read our e-mail
disclaimer statement and monitoring policy, please refer to the
statement below or contact the sender. 
This communication is from Northumberland National Park Authority
(NNPA).The Authority's head office and principal place of business is
Eastburn, South Park, Hexham, Northumberland, NE46 1BS, United
Kingdom.This communication and any attachments contain information which
is confidential and may also be privileged. It is for the exclusive use
of users at mapguide.osgeo.org. If you are not the intended recipient(s)
please note that any form of disclosure, distribution, copying or use of
this communication or the information in it or in any attachments is
strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this
communication in error, please return it with the title "received in
error" to "it.security at nnpa.org.uk" then delete the email and destroy
any copies of it. 
E-mail communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error free,
as information could be intercepted, corrupted, amended, lost,
destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. We do not
accept liability for any such matters or their consequences. Anyone who
communicates with us by e-mail is taken to accept the risks in doing so.

Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do
not necessarily represent those of NNPA.Contractors or potential
contractors are reminded that a formal Order or Contract is needed for
NNPA to be bound by any offer or acceptance of terms for the supply of
goods or services Although this email and any attachments are believed
to be free of any virus or other defects which might affect any computer
or IT system into which they are received, no responsibility is accepted
by the NNPA for any loss or damage arising in any way from the receipt
or use thereof. Computer systems of this Authority may be monitored and
communications carried out on them recorded, to secure the effective
operation of the system and for other lawful purposes.


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