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+# Serving via SCGI
+
+There is an alternative to running Fossil as a [standalone HTTP
+server](./none.md), which is to run it in SimpleCGI (a.k.a. SCGI) mode,
+which uses the same [`fossil server`](/help/server) command as for HTTP
+service. Simply add the `--scgi` command-line option and the stand-alone
+server will speak the SCGI protocol rather than raw HTTP.
+
+This can be used with a web server such as [nginx](http://nginx.org)
+which does not support [Fossil’s CGI mode](./cgi.md).
+
+A basic nginx configuration to support SCGI with Fossil looks like this:
+
+    location /code/ {
+        include scgi_params;
+        scgi_param SCRIPT_NAME "/code";
+        scgi_pass localhost:9000;
+    }
+
+The `scgi_params` file comes with nginx, and it simply translates nginx
+internal variables to `scgi_param` directives to create SCGI environment
+variables for the proxied program; in this case, Fossil. Our explicit
+`scgi_param` call to define `SCRIPT_NAME` adds one more variable to this
+set, which is necessary for this configuration to work properly, because
+our repo isn’t at the root of the URL hierarchy. Without it, when Fossil
+generates absolute URLs, they’ll be missing the `/code` part at the
+start, which will typically cause [404 errors][404].
+
+The final directive simply tells nginx to proxy all calls to URLs under
+`/code` down to an SCGI program on TCP port 9000. We can temporarily
+set Fossil up as a server on that port like so:
+
+    $ fossil server /path/to/repo.fossil --scgi --localhost --port 9000 &
+
+The `--scgi` option switches Fossil into SCGI mode from its default,
+which is [stand-alone HTTP server mode](./none.md). All of the other
+options discussed in that linked document — such as the ability to serve
+a directory full of Fossil repositories rather than just a single
+repository — work the same way in SCGI mode.
+
+The `--localhost` option is simply good security: we’re using nginx to
+expose Fossil service to the outside world, so there is no good reason
+to allow outsiders to contact this Fossil SCGI server directly.
+
+Giving an explicit non-default TCP port number via `--port` is a good
+idea to avoid conflicts with use of Fossil’s default TCP service port,
+8080, which may conflict with local uses of `fossil ui` and such.
+
+We characterized the SCGI service start command above as “temporary”
+because running Fossil in the background like that means it won’t start
+back up on a reboot of the server. A simple solution to that is to add
+that command to `/etc/rc.local` on systems that have it. However, you
+might want to consider setting Fossil up as an OS service instead, so
+that you get the benefits of the platform’s service management
+framework:
+
+*   [Linux (systemd)](../debian/service.md)
+*   [Windows service](../windows/service.md)
+*   [macOS (launchd)](../macos/service.md)
+*   [xinetd](../any/xinetd.md)
+*   [inetd](../any/inetd.md)
+
+We go into more detail on nginx service setup with Fossil in our
+[Debian/Ubuntu specific guide](../debian/nginx.md), which also
+gets you TLS service.
+
+Similarly, our [OpenBSD specific guide](../openbsd/fastcgi.md) details how
+to setup a Fossil server using httpd and FastCGI on OpenBSD.
+
+*[Return to the top-level Fossil server article.](../)*
+
+[404]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_404