Persistent Perl on the Virtual Host

Installation

To install SpeedyCGI on a virtual host takes a little extra work than a standard module, but it's worth it. The first thing you need to do is download the module from search.cpan.org, then unpack it into a directory on your host. For those not familiar with how to do this, here's a step by step guide.

To unpack and install type the following commands at the telnet prompt: (SpeedyCGI can't be installed on NT so don't waste your time trying).

gunzip CGI-SpeedyCGI-1.8.3.tar.gz
tar -xvf CGI-SpeedyCGI-1.8.3.tar
cd CGI-SpeedyCGI-1.8.3
perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/home/domain  (full path to your domain)
make
make test

Now here's the trick to get it to install because it will always fail in its default state. Depending on your path to perl this might be a little different, but it will be easy to spot if the make install fails.

Create a "bin" directory in your domain: /home/domain/bin

With Perl located in /usr/local/bin/ you may have to create the directory /home/domain/local/bin. It appears that Speedy is trying to emulate where Perl is installed on the server. If you get an error and it complains about not being able to find the directory then this is most likely the problem and you can simply create the required directory and run make install again.

Once that directory is created, go back into the SpeedyCGI directory and type:

make install

If all goes well you will now have Speedy installed. The shebang line will be a little different than what you're used to, though. The following line reflects that you are running the Speedy executable in your own domain space.

#!/home/domain/bin/speedy  -w -- -t60

SpeedyCGI command line options will always follow the -- on the shebang line. Any options before the -- are perl options. The above line reflects a time-out of 60 seconds. There are some other useful options so you should refer to the documentation to get a thorough understanding of Speedy commands.

About the author:

Mark Porter is a Perl Monger and has been programming perl for about three years. He currently owns his own business, imChat Inc which is merging with another business, Balsa-Tech Inc. They sell business intelligence software, do custom CGI programming and are currently looking for startup capital. Contact Mark at perl@imchat.com.

How It Works

This article originally appeared in the August 31, 2000 edition of the WebReference Update Newsletter.