From: Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@...>
Date: 2006-01-21T10:45:30+09:00
Subject: Re: [ANN] Mongrel 0.1.0 -- A Fast As Hell Mostly Ruby Web Server

On 1/20/06, Zed Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 20, 2006, at 1:00 PM, Jon Smirl wrote:
>
> > On 1/20/06, Zed Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
> >
> > WEBrick does not implement application roles which are implemented on
> > both Lighttpd and Apache. It would be nice if any new servers
> > implemented this feature, it would make it easier to test/deploy
> > things without involving Apache.
> >
> I believe I've heard this before, but I've never been clear *why*
> it's needed.  Is it just so you can have lighttpd server static files
> after checking if the access is allowed?

Web server first pings the app on the authorizer hook
App says yes/no for authorization
If yes, web server tries to serve static file
if not found, 404 mechanism will trigger fcgi app and static file will
get created.

The authorization ping is there is allow conditional access to static
(or cached) files.

You could ignore the authorization ping but then you have to serve the
file up from the fcgi app. That will tie the fcgi app up forever if a
dialup user asks for a 100MB file.

In your case of a ruby/C hybrid the goal is to send the file using
sendfile() if possible.

>
> > http://www.fastcgi.com/devkit/doc/fastcgi-whitepaper/fastcgi.htm
> >     * Responder. This is the basic FastCGI role, and corresponds to
> > the simple functionality offered by CGI today.
> >     * Authorizer. The FastCGI program performs an access control
> > decision for the request (such as performing a username/password
> > database lookup).
>
> I'm thinking this wouldn't be too hard, but like I said previously
> I'm not quite sure what's involved.  Is it possible for you to
> describe the problem less in terms of what you need and more in terms
> of what you want to do?  That might help me.
>
> Zed A. Shaw
> http://www.zedshaw.com/
>
>
>


--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com