Re: [RFD] Combined fork-exec syscall.

[Mark Grosberg <mark@nolab.conman.org>]

On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, dean gaudet wrote:

> On Sun, 27 Apr 2003, Mark Grosberg wrote:
>
> > I would think on large, multi-user systems that are spawning processes all
> > day, this might improve performance if the shells on such a system were
> > patched.
>
> more relevant is a large multithreaded (or async model with many
> connections per thread/process) webserver spawning cgi.  otherwise you pay

Heh. I just happen to have written a multi-threaded webserver (called
Seminole), but it does CGI "in process." Actually, it runs on VxWorks too
where there is no concept of a process. :-)

But you're right. This could be a boon for any non-in-process (non
mod_perl or PHP) webservers.

The idea would be that the file mapping array would be easier to scan
(kind of like how poll() is a lot easier than select()).

> if you look at such webservers they tend to have a separate process just
> for the purpose of spawning cgi/etc. and use some IPC to pass the data to
> the cgi spawner.

Yup. I suppose for Apache this could be an alternate interface of the APR
spawn process function.

L8r,
Mark G.