Patrick Beeson

One of my biggest complaints with Movable Type was how slow the admin could be at times. And it always seemed slower on my Mac for some reason.

Solution: I configured my Dreamhost account to run FastCGI and altered my Movable Type install (MT4 Beta 4) accordingly. It's like a sports car now!

I'm not sure if this is the Six Apart-approved way, but here's how I did it (works with Dreamhost and Movable Type 3.34 to 4b4):

• Go into your Dreamhost account admin

• Click "domains" in the left-hand nav, and then select "manage domains"

• Find the domain you are running Movable Type on, and click "edit"

• Make sure the check-box for FastCGI is checked, and save the setting

• Give it a few minutes to configure

• Open your FTP client and go to your Movable Type directory

• Add the following lines to your "mt-config.cgi" file:

  AdminScript mt.fcgi CommentScript mt-comments.fcgi TrackbackScript mt-tb.fcgi SearchScript mt-search.fcgi ViewScript mt-view.fcgi XMLRPCScript mt-xmlrpc.fcgi AtomScript mt-atom.fcgi UpgradeScript mt-upgrade.fcgi ActivityFeedScript mt-feed.fcgi LaunchBackgroundTasks 0

• Change the file extensions on the files you referenced to ".fcgi" (don't change it for "mt-config.cgi")

• Open up the index.html file in your Movable Type folder, and change the link to "mt.cgi" to "mt.fcgi"

You should also ensure your permissions remain at 755 for your .fcgi files.

That's pretty much it. I've also read that pre-MT4 users can download a souped up Bootstrapper file and/or add a few lines to their .htaccess file.

I didn't have to do this for FastCGI to work. And the .htaccess change threw 500 errors.

If you're running Movable Type on Dreamhost, you really should give FastCGI a shot. And then download MT4 -- I sense great things for the once-king of blogging CMS!

*NOTE: If you don't have Dreamhost, but want to use FastCGI, try this documentation from Six Apart.*