[Catalyst] Why use external FastCGI apps?

[Matt Pitts]

I just got advise from mst to not use mod_fcgid in production because it
doesn't support external fastcgi and this is the way to do HA apps. I
wanted to ask some questions and hear some arguments. I know there's
some existing traffic on the list about this, but I thought some fresh
info would be nice.

We're currently running a Cat app under mod_fcgid in production that
handles about a million hits a day b/t Cat and static files.

Why did we chose mod_fcgid? Well, I tried playing around with
mod_fastcgi for awhile and had problems getting the config straight -
admittedly due to a lack of knowledge on my part. Then I read some
tidbits about mod_fcgid being "better", so I tried it out and it "just
worked" and has been "just working" ever since.

Why is it so much better to have fastcgi as an external process? Is it
because this is the only way to realistically to PAR-based deployments?

What's wrong with having mod_fcgid do its process management. If I'm not
mistaken good process management is one of the design goals of this
project.

I'm one of those folks who hates writing/managing his own daemon
management scripts, so if something is going to do it for me and it
works then I'm happy to use it.

Thoughts?

v/r

-matt pitts