curl on cgi vs module

[kimgokce]

I have a script I have been using on my old host that I am moving to a new host. It uses curl to post data to a remote server, receives, and displays the results.

$XPost = "foo";
$url = "https://erewhon.com/important";
$ch = curl_init(); // initialize curl handle
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL,$url); // set url to post to
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER,1); // return into a variable
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 4); // times out after 4s
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $XPost); // add POST fields
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 2);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, FALSE);
$result = curl_exec($ch); // run the whole process
echo $result; //contains response from server
echo "<p>End contents.<br>";

$filename = 'out.xml';
$somecontent = $result;

This script executes fine on old host but returns no $result on new host. Both 'out.xml' files are writable to my account users at both providers. Is there any issue with PHP running as CGI for curl?

I crawled around looking for environment settings that are different and all I could find is:

1. New host has a newer zlib compiled with curl (0.9.7a zlib0.9.6b zlib) vs. 0.9.6b zlibon the host were script executes normally.
2. New host runs PHP as CGI, the host where script executes normally runs PHP as a module.

I can see no other possible explanations for the different results. Any suggestions?

[kimgokce]

Okay PHP'ers ... I looked at file/dir rights, I looked at curl and fwrite() behavior on cgi versus php as an apache module and drum roll ....

It was the curl timeout value:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 4);

On my previous server, php was running as an apache module and the 4 sec timeout was never an issue. Under CGI (on new server), it is taking an average of 12 seconds to return the request. I am presuming that this delay is the result of one of the few negatives associated with php as cgi ... each time a script is run it requires that php load whereas as an apache module this overhead in startup is avoided.

Anyone know the overhead typically encountered with CGI for PHP? My non-scientific experience here seems to point to about 8 seconds ... there are network difference invovled obviously, too, but that's a big price to pay either way. Comments?

Happy scripting!