• Overview
• Enabling FastCGI support in IIS 7
• Install Python
• Install wfastcgi
• Configure IIS to handle Python requests

Overview

The FastCGI module in IIS enables popular application frameworks that support the FastCGI protocol to be hosted on the IIS Web server in a high performance and reliable way. FastCGI provides a high-performance alternative to the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), which is a standard way of interfacing external applications with Web servers that has been a part of the supported IIS feature set since the first release.

CGI programs are executable files that are launched by the Web server for each request to process the request and generate dynamic responses that are then sent back to the client. Because many of these frameworks do not support multi-threaded execution, CGI enables them to execute reliably on IIS by executing exactly one request per process. Unfortunately, it provides poor performance due to the high cost of starting and shutting down a process for each request.

FastCGI addresses the performance issues that are inherent in CGI by providing a mechanism to reuse a single process over and over again for many requests. Additionally, FastCGI maintains compatibility with non-thread-safe libraries by providing a pool of reusable processes and ensuring that each process handles only one request at a time.

Enable FastCGI Support in IIS 7

Windows Server 2008

Go to Server Manager -> Roles -> Add Role Services. On the Select Role Services page, select the CGI check box. This enables both the CGI and FastCGI services.

Windows Vista SP1

Go to Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the CGI check box. This enables both the CGI and FastCGI services.

IMPORTANT: Install the Update for the FastCGI Module The update for the IIS 7 FastCGI module fixes several known compatibility issues with popular PHP applications. Install the update from one of the following locations:

Update for Windows Server 2008
• Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition
• Update for Windows Vista SP1
• Update for Windows Vista SP1 for x64 based Systems

Install the Administration Pack for IIS 7

NOTE: This step is optional.

Among other useful features, the Administration Pack for IIS 7 has a convenient user interface for configuring FastCGI settings. The Administration Pack can be installed from the following locations:

• Administration Pack for IIS 7 - x86
• Administration Pack for IIS 7 - x64

Install and Configure Python and Django

• Python.org Python downloads
• Install setuptools (easy_install)
• Run "easy_install.exe django" as Adminstrator. easy_install.exe is in C:\Python27\Scripts\easy_install.exe or where C:\Python27 is the directory you installed Python into.

Install wfastcgi

Currently this file just needs to be copied somewhere onto your machine, where you can refer to it in the configuring step below.

Configure IIS 7 to Handle Python Requests

1. Open IIS Manager. At the server level, double-click Handler Mappings.
   
   
2. In the Actions pane, click Add Module Mapping.... In the Add Module Mapping dialog box, specify the configuration settings as follows:
   • Request path: * TODO: NEED GUIDANCE ON THE REQUEST PATH HERE
   • Module: FastCgiModule
   • Executable: "C:\Python27\python.exe|<path to wfastcgi.py>\wfastcgi.py"
   • Name: Python via FastCGI
3. Click OK
   
   
4. In the Add Module Mapping confirmation dialog box that asks if you want to create a FastCGI application for this executable, click Yes.
   
   
5. Add FastCGI settings.
   • In IIS Manager. At the server level, double-click FastCGI Settings.
     
     
   • Click Add Application... under Actions
   • For Full Path specify the path to the Python interpreter, and for Arguments specify the path to wfastcgi.py
     
     
   • Click on the Environment Variables collection and define the following variables:
     

     Name	Value
     WSGI_HANDLER	django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler
     DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE	settings
     PYTHON_PATH	<path to django application>

6. Test that the handler mapping works correctly by ... DOING WHAT EXACTLY?