FastCGI with perl - On shared Linux webhost - linux

Question

I am trying to build an online "live chat" service, and for many reasons I found FastCGI to be suitable for that (as per its documentation), but I cannot seem to get it running.
I am using shared hosting with Apache 2.2 with mod_fcgid installed.
My .htaccess file has the following line added:
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
My perl test script named fcgitest.fcgi is as follows:
#!/usr/bin/perl
# fcgitest.fcgi
use diagnostics;
use warnings;
use strict;
use CGI;
use CGI::Carp 'fatalsToBrowser'; # tester only!
use FCGI;
my %env; my $in = new IO::Handle; my $out = new IO::Handle; my $err = new IO::Handle;
my $request=FCGI::Request($in, $out, $err, \%env);
if($request->IsFastCGI()==0) {
print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n"; binmode STDOUT; print "ERR"; exit 0;
}
my $tm=time();
while($request->Accept() >= 0) {
my $env=$request->GetEnvironment();
print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n"; binmode STDOUT;
print time()." ".$env;
if(time()>($tm+60)) { $request->Finish(); exit 0; }
}
print "Content-Type: text/plain\n\n"; binmode STDOUT; print "---"; exit 0;
When I call this script from within one of my pages, I getting Internal Server Error, code 500, with NO explanation and NO error log in the server log file.
I tried to hide all the code and leave only the print statement, the problem remains the same.
I tried moving the file into the fcgi-bin directory, but the problem remains.
I have checked that the perl module is well installed.
I have no idea what can cause this error, as my hosting supplier says the server is well-configured for FCGI...

Answer 1

what shared hosting are you using? Most shared hosting have fcgi already installed, and you don't need to test the fcgi module on your own.
For example, on godaddy shared hosting, .fcgi/.fpl and even my .pl files would run over FCGI instead of normal CGI. No extra effort.
try different file permissions like 644, 700, 750, 755 for the script you are running.
Also, try adding the line:
print "Content-type:text/html\n\n";
after use CGI::Carp line.