FastCGI with nginx and fcgiwrap on FreeBSD

I wanted nginx to serve CGI scripts from /usr/local/www/cgi-bin. Unlike Apache, nginx supports only FastCGI. Thus, you have to use fcgiwrap.

Steps

1. Install nginx:

   # make -C /usr/ports/www/nginx install clean
   

2. Install fcgiwrap:

   # make -C /usr/ports/www/fcgiwrap install clean
   

3. Create /usr/local/www/cgi-bin/:

   # mkdir /usr/local/www/cgi-bin
   

4. Create a trivial cgi script /usr/local/www/cgi-bin/test.sh which prints the current date and time:

   #!/bin/sh
   
   echo "Content-Type: text/plain"
   echo
   date
   

5. Make that script executable:

   # chmod 0755 /usr/local/www/cgi-bin/test.sh
   

6. Configure nginx to forward any requests to /cgi-bin/ to fcgiwrap, and serve those requests from /usr/local/www/cgi-bin. Edit /usr/local/etc/nginx/nginx.conf and insert this after the default location / block:

   ...
   http {
       ...
       server {
           ...
           location / {
               ...
           }
           location /cgi-bin {
               root          /usr/local/www;
               include       fastcgi_params;
               fastcgi_pass  unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap/fcgiwrap.sock;
           }
           ...
       }
       ...
   }
   ...
   

7. Enable both nginx and fcgiwrap, and also make the unix socket on which fcgiwrap listens available to nginx:

   # sysrc nginx_enable=YES
   # sysrc fcgiwrap_enable=YES
   # sysrc fcgiwrap_socket_group=www
   

8. Optionally, redirect any errors from the CGI scripts to the web server's error logfile:

   # sysrc fcgiwrap_flags=-f
   

9. Start nginx and fcgiwrap:

   # service fcgiwrap start
   # service nginx start
   

10. Point your browser to http://IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_WEBSERVER/cgi-bin/test.sh