CGI example for linux

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Tarkin

Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Posts: 22

Tarkin 04 May 2012, 16:05

I know there have been a couple of questions on this, and I've been playing with scripted CGI.
I was wondering just how much faster hand-coded assembler could be than scripted and compiled C.

Here is what I came up with:

Code:

; vim: set ft=fasm: set ft=2:
; simple exercise just to see if I can do CGI in assembler...

use32
format elf executable 3
entry _start

; system call numbers copied from /usr/include/asm/unistd_32.h
; 32-bit 2.6-series kernel
; include 'include/unistd-26.inc'
; since you might not have this file or equivalent:
__NR_write = 4
__NR_exit   = 1

define CRLF 0x0D,0x0A
macro SYSCALL { int 0x80 }

BUFFER_LENGTH = 1024

segment executable
align 4

;;; this startup code was inspired by:
;;; "Startup state of a Linux/i386 ELF Binary"
;;; http://asm.sourceforge.net/articles/startup.html

_start:
 mov edx,esp                ; save esp
       pop eax                       ; get ARGC
    mov [ARGC],eax          ; save ARGC
 mov [ARGV],esp        ; save ARGV
   shl eax,2                    ; fast eax * 4
 add eax,esp               ; eax + esp = -> NULL, end of ARGV
     mov esp,eax               ; update esp
      pop ecx                      ; get NULL off the stack, init counter (ecx)
   mov [ENVP],esp               ; esp -> ENVP, save it

COUNTENV:                     ; count the environment variables
   pop eax                      ; get *ENVP
    inc ecx                      ; increment counter
    test eax,eax                 ; NULL check
jnz COUNTENV                   ; repeat while !NULL

        dec ecx                      ; adjust count for NULL
        mov [ENVC],ecx               ; save count
   mov esp,edx                  ; restore esp

; set us up the algorithm
 mov ebp,[ENVP]               ; ebp -> ENVP
       mov edi,BUFFER               ; edi = dynamic data buffer

ENVCOPY:                          ; copies <li>(env var string)</li> <br /> to thebuffer
      mov ecx,4
   mov esi,LIO
 rep movsb
   mov esi,[ebp]                ; get next *string
     push esi                     ; save string origin
   mov ecx,255
 push ecx 
   xor eax,eax
.scan:
   lodsb
       test eax,eax
loopnz .scan
        pop eax
     sub eax,ecx                  ; compute length
       mov ecx,eax                  ; ecx = string length
  pop esi                      ; pop string start off stack
   rep movsb                    ; 
     mov esi,LIC
 mov ecx,8
   rep movsb
   times 4 inc ebp
     mov eax,[ebp]
       test eax,eax
jnz ENVCOPY

     mov eax,edi                  ; buffer end
   mov ebx,BUFFER               ; buffer start
 sub eax,ebx                  ; compute length
       mov [DY_L],eax               ; store length

     mov esi,HD_P
        xor ebx,ebx
 inc ebx

DOCLOOP:                       ; load pointers and length, write to stdout, repeat
       lodsd
       mov ecx,eax
 lodsd
       mov edx,eax
 mov eax,__NR_write
  SYSCALL
     mov eax,[esi+4]              ; peekahead
    test eax,eax
        jnz DOCLOOP
DONE:
    xor ebx,ebx
 mov eax,__NR_exit
   SYSCALL

;;; DATA
segment readable writeable
; program arguments and environment variables
ARGC: dd 0
ARGV: dd 0
ENVC: dd 0
ENVP: dd 0
CNT0: dd 0
; buffer pointers and length
HD_P: dd HEADER
HD_L: dd HEND - HEADER
S1_P: dd PAGE_STATIC1
S1_L: dd S1END - PAGE_STATIC1
DY_P: dd BUFFER
DY_L: dd 0
S2_P: dd PAGE_STATIC2
S2_L: dd S2END - PAGE_STATIC2
ELST: dd 0 ; end of list
; static buffers - html headers, html before & after the env list
HEADER:
db "HTTP/1.1 200 OK",CRLF
db "Content-Type: text/html",CRLF
db "Connection: Close",CRLF
db "X-Powered-By: ASSEMBLER",CRLF
db CRLF,CRLF
HEND:
PAGE_STATIC1:
db "<html>",CRLF
db "<head>",CRLF
db "<title>ASM CGI</title>",CRLF
db "</head>",CRLF
db "<body>",CRLF
db "<h1>CGI INFO:</h1>",CRLF
db "<ul>",CRLF
S1END:
PAGE_STATIC2:
db "</ul>",CRLF
db "</body>",CRLF
db "</html>",CRLF
S2END:
LIO: db "<li>"
LIC: db "</li> ",CRLF
;;; BSS
segment readable writeable
align 16
BUFFER:
times BUFFER_LENGTH rd 0

I use thttpd http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/ to test my CGI stuff.

AFAICT, this assembler version trounces a libc/c version.
I think it takes longer for thttpd/Linux longer to fork() the CGI process,
than for the assembled binary to execute!!

Hope this helps someone....
TTFN, Tarkin

Last edited by Tarkin on 10 May 2012, 15:47; edited 1 time in total

04 May 2012, 16:05

JohnFound

Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 3499
Location: Bulgaria

JohnFound 04 May 2012, 17:47

Hm, did you made some performance measurements? Please, describe your benchmark setup in more details.

04 May 2012, 17:47

Tarkin

Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Posts: 22

Tarkin 05 May 2012, 00:48

JohnFound wrote:

Hm, did you made some performance measurements? Please, describe your benchmark setup in more details.

Just off-the-cuff observations.
Also, I now realize that the comparison of an assembled binary
to interpreted forth or C is really unfair.

My dev server setup:

hp pavilion a730n
Intel Pentium4 530 (P) 3.0 GHz (HT) HyperThreaded, 2 Threads
1 GB ram, 800 MHz FSB

NIC: Integrated 10/100 Base-T Realtek RTL8101L

Linux hostname 2.6.32-5-686 #1 SMP Mon Mar 26 05:20:33 UTC 2012 i686 GNU/Linux
Debian 6.0.3 (32-bit)

thttpd/2.25b 29dec2003
thttpd cgi: CGI_PATTERN=**.4th|**.cgi|**.c

gcc gcc version 4.4.5 (Debian 4.4.5-8
fasm version 1.70 for forth interpreter & cgi example posted above
tcc 0.9.25 Fabrice Bellard's TinyC compiler - linked to glibc (vs libtcc)
flow-forth 0.2.1 (custom forth interpreter in assembly)
http://sgmtech.homelinux.org/flow/flow.html

Browser: Firefox 12.0 Linux + firebug 1.9.1
Times were observed from the firebug "net" panel

Observations:
forth: 5ms to 10ms, average 6ms
libc,tcc,interp: 13ms to 23ms, average 13ms
libc, tcc,compiled: 5ms to 10ms, average 5ms
libc, gcc,compiled: - 4ms to 15ms, average 6ms
same, with -O2 - 5ms to 6ms, average 5ms
same, with -O3 - 5ms to 23ms, varied wildy
same, with -O4 - 5ms to 7ms,average 5ms
asm binary - 4ms to 5ms, average 4ms

With no other tabs & programs running on the client,
and no unnecessary processes running on server,
I'd expect to see more consistent results.

Here is the forth version:

Code:

#! /path/to/forth
\ flow-forth binary is named 'flow2'
: NEWL 13 10 EMIT EMIT ;
: dumpvars
0
BEGIN
  DUP ENVC = IF DROP EXIT THEN DUP 1+ SWAP
    CELLS ENVS + @ DUP STRLEN
   ." <li>"  TYPE ." </li> " CR
AGAIN
;

." HTTP/1.1 200 OK" CR
." Content-Type: text/html" CR
." Connection: close" CR
." X-Powered-By: flow-forth" CR
NEWL NEWL
." <html>" CR
." <head>" CR
." <title>FORTH CGI</title>" CR
." </head>" CR
." <body>" CR
." <h1>CGI INFO</h1>" CR
." <ul>" CR
dumpvars
." </ul>" CR
." </body>" CR
." </html>" CR
BYE

source of the interpreted C file:

Code:

#!/usr/local/bin/tcc -run -lc
/* vim: set ft=c: set ts=2 */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <unistd.h>

extern char **environ;

char page[] = {
     'H','T','T','P','/','1','.','1',' ','2','0','0',' ','O','K','\r','\n',                                 /* 17 */
 'C','o','n','t','e','n','t','-','T','y','p','e',':',' ',                                               /* 14 */
     't','e','x','t','/','h','t','m','l',';','c','h','a','r','s','e','t','=','u','t','f','-','8','\r','\n', /* 25 */
 'X','-','P','o','w','e','r','e','d','-','B','y',':',' ','t','c','c','-','c','g','i','\r','\n',         /* 23 */
 '\r','\n','\r','\n',                                                                                   /*  4 */
 /* 83 bytes */

  0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
  0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,

        0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,

        0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,

        0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,
    0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
}; /* should be 1024 bytes total */

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
   char **envs;
        strcat(page,"<html>\r\n");
        strcat(page,"<head>\r\n");
        strcat(page,"<title>TCC CGI</title\r\n");
      strcat(page,"</head>\r\n");
       strcat(page,"<body>\r\n");

    strcat(page,"<h1>CGI INFO</h1>\r\n");
       strcat(page,"<ul>\r\n");

      for (envs = environ; *envs != NULL; envs++) {
          strcat(page,"<li>");
                strcat(page,*envs);
         strcat(page,"</li> \r\n");
        }
      strcat(page,"</ul>\r\n");
 strcat(page,"</body>\r\n");
       strcat(page,"</html>\r\n");

   printf("%s",page);
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

and finally, the compiled C version:

Code:

/* vim: set ft=c: set ts=2: */

#if __TINYC__
#include "stddef.h"
#include "stdarg.h"
#include "tcclib.h"
#else
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#endif

#ifndef EXIT_SUCCESS
#define EXIT_SUCCESS 0
#endif

int main(int argc, char *argv[], char *envp[]) {
    int i=0;
    char *env;

      printf("HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n");
  printf("Content-Type: text/html\r\n");
      printf("Connection: close\r\n");
    printf("X-Powered-By: gcc-cgi\r\n");
        printf("\r\n\r\n");

       printf("<html>\r\n");
     printf("<head><title>CGIVARS</title></head>\r\n");
      printf("<body>\r\n");

 printf("<h1>CGI INFO</h1>\r\n");
    printf("<ul>\r\n");
       for (i=0; envp[i] != NULL; i++) printf("<li>%s</li> \r\n",envp[i]);
 printf("</ul>\r\n");

  printf("</body>\r\n");
    printf("</html>\r\n");
    exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

05 May 2012, 00:48

JohnFound

Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 3499
Location: Bulgaria

JohnFound 06 May 2012, 12:10

Every time I have to make some web sites in PHP or Perl, I dream to be able to make it in assembly. Unfortunately, the most hosting providers forbid using plain executables and allow only interpreted languages, such as Perl and PHP...
But one day (when I grow up) I will purchase some hosting allowing assembly CGI scripts and will write CMS in plain assembly. Very Happy

06 May 2012, 12:10

Tarkin

Joined: 27 Aug 2010
Posts: 22

Tarkin 08 May 2012, 20:01

perhaps linode?
http://www.linode.com/faq.cfm

A bit pricy @ 20USD/mo (24 month cycle price?),
but might be worth it...

TTFN,
Tarkin

08 May 2012, 20:01

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