Apache Cookbook, 2nd Edition

11.14. Speeding Up Perl CGI Programs with mod_perl

Problem

You have existing functional Perl CGI programs and want them to run faster.

Solution

If you have the mod_perl module installed, you can configure it to run your Perl CGI programs instead of running mod_cgi. This gives you a big performance boost, without having to modify your CGI code.

There are two slightly different ways to do this.

For Apache 1.3 and mod_perl version 1:

Alias /cgi-perl/ /usr/local/apache/cgi-bin/
<Location /cgi-perl>
    Options ExecCGI
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlHandler Apache::PerlRun
    PerlSendHeader On
</Location>

Alias /perl/ /usr/local/apache/cgi-bin/
<Location /perl>
    Options ExecCGI
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlHandler Apache::Registry
    PerlSendHeader On
</Location>

For Apache 2.0 and mod_perl version 2, the syntax changes slightly:

PerlModule ModPerl::PerlRun
Alias /cgi-perl/ /usr/local/apache2/cgi-bin/
<Location /cgi-perl>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::PerlRun
    Options +ExecCGI
</Location>

PerlModule ModPerl::Registry
Alias /perl/ /usr/local/apache2/cgi-bin/
<Location /perl>
    SetHandler perl-script
    PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry
    Options +ExecCGI
</Location>

Discussion

By using mod_perl’s CGI modes, you can improve the performance of existing CGI programs without modifying the CGI code itself in any way. Given the previous configuration sections, a CGI program that was previously accessed via the URL http://www.example.com/cgi-bin/program.cgi will now be accessed via the URL http://www.example.com/cgi-perl/program.cgi ...