Running a C FastCGI script using NGINX

Question

This should be my last question regarding FastCGI and NGINX (I've asked way too many already), but I had a question regarding running C FastCGI scripts on a web server, specifically NGINX. So right now this is how my nginx.conf file looks like:

user nobody nobody;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}    

http {
    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name localhost;

        location / {
            root            /nginx/html;
            index index.html index.htm new.html;
            autoindex on;
            fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:8000;
        }

    }
}

I have a simple C FastCGI script that prints out Hello World. I know that in order to run this script, I first have to compile the C script which would result in a binary. I then execute this binary using spawn-fcgi -p 8000 -n <binary> or cgi-fcgi -start -connect localhost:8000 ./<binary>. I have had success doing this and displaying the correct results. However, when I do this, the CGI script is the only thing that is being displayed on the web server. I cannot go to any .html page or any other page for that matter. Even if I type in a random extension which should result in a 404 Page not Found error, the CGI script is being displayed. Basically I'm trying to have a index.html be the home page and then when the user clicks on a button, the user is taken to a new page that displays the C CGI script.

Is this possible? If so, how could I do it? I have spent hours trying to find a solution online but have had no success. Please let me know if the question is too vague/unclear or if you need more information! Thank you!

Richard Smith · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-11 18:48:55Z

5

There are two possibilities that I can think of. You can assign a URI to your CGI program and use that to access it. Or you can send any invalid URI to your CGI program.

In the first case, you could use:

root /nginx/html;
index index.html index.htm new.html;

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
}
location /api {
    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:8000;
}

So, any URI beginning with /api will be sent to the CGI program. Other URIs will be served by nginx, unless not found, in which case a 404 response will be returned.

In the second case, you could use:

root /nginx/html;
index index.html index.htm new.html;

location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @api;
}
location @api {
    fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:8000;
}

So any URI that does not exist will be sent to the CGI program.

See this document for the try_files directive, and this document for the location directive.

answered Jul 11, 2016 at 18:48

Richard Smith

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1 Comment

trynacode Over a year ago

Perfect! Should've done a better job understanding how exactly to manipulate the .conf file, but your answer helped!

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