README

Introduction
============

mod_scgi is an implementation of the
`Simple Common Gateway Interface <http://python.ca/scgi/protocol.txt>`_
for the `Nginx <http://nginx.net>`_ web server.

Nginx is a fast asynchronous HTTP server.


Installation
============

mod_scgi has been tested with Nginx 0.5.35.

Download the Nginx sources from http://nginx.net/ and unpack it.

The sources of mod_scgi can be downloaded from a
`Mercurial <http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/>`_ repository:
http://hg.mperillo.ath.cx/nginx/mod_scgi/

At the moment there is no stable release, so you need to download the
latest revision (*tip*) or the latest *tag*.

The *tip* can be downloaded via the Mercurial web interface:
http://hg.mperillo.ath.cx/nginx/mod_scgi/archive/tip.tar.gz

or cloning the repository: ::

  hg clone http://hg.mperillo.ath.cx/nginx/mod_scgi/

The latest *tag* can be found from:
http://hg.mperillo.ath.cx/nginx/mod_scgi/tags

To build Nginx, change to the directory which contains the Nginx
sources, and run the configuration script making sure to add the path
to the mod_scgi sources using the --add-module option.
It is recommended to enable debugging. ::

  $ ./configure --add-module=/path/to/mod_scgi/ --with-debug

Nginx will use as default prefix path the directory
`/usr/local/nginx`.

Now you can build and install the software: ::

  $ make

and as root: ::

  $ make install


Notes
=====

This module is still under development.

The module is mainly an adaptation of the existing
`ngx_http_fastcgi_module`, with some code (the HTTP status line and
headers parsing) from the `ngx_http_proxy_module`.


In the current version `SCRIPT_NAME` and `PATH_INFO` are not defined.

The current implementation also only supports SCGI response that
conforms to HTTP 1.0; this means that the response must start with an
HTTP 1.x status line (like `HTTP 1.0 200 OK`) and not by using the
`Status` header.


BUGS
====

This implementation is not fully conform to the SCGI protocol.

The SCGI specification states: ::

  Duplicate names are not allowed in the headers

however Nginx does not combines multiple headers.


Example
=======

Here is a sample configuration: ::

    location  /scgi {
        scgi_pass   127.0.0.1:4000;

        include     conf/scgi_vars;
        scgi_var    SCRIPT_NAME  /scgi;
        scgi_var    PATH_INFO    /xxx;
    }

note the inclusion of the `conf/scgi_vars` file.

This file must be copied to the nginx `$prefix/conf` directory by
hand.