Deploying Perl apps

Azure Web Apps doesn't have direct support for Perl, but it's possible to get it working with some manual steps:

• Create a Web App.
• Go to Kudu Console to easily drop files into your site.
• Go to http://strawberryperl.com/releases.html and download the "32bit ZIP edition".
• Create a perl folder under D:\home\site.
• Drag and drop the perl zip file into that folder, making sure to drop it in the special area that expands zip files. It's a big file, so it could take several minutes.
• Go into the D:\home\site\perl\perl\lib folder, and create a subfolder named FCGI.
• On your machine, download http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/C/CO/COSMICNET/FCGI-IIS-0.05.tar.gz
• Using a tool like 7zip, extract the file IIS.pm out of it (it's under FCGI-IIS-0.05\lib\FCGI).
• Copy that file into the FCGI folder you create above in the Kudu Console.
• Go to the Azure Portal and go to you site's Configure page.
• Under Handler Mappings, add one for: Extension: *.pl, Script processor path: D:\home\site\perl\perl\bin\perl.exe, Additional arguments: -MFCGI::IIS=do.

• Using Kudu console, copy a Perl file into D:\home\site\wwwroot. e.g. hello.pl.
• Request http://{yoursite}.azurewebsites.net/hello.pl to run it.

Here is an example hello.pl file you can start with:

print "Content-type: text/plain\n\n";
print "Hello from Perl on Windows!\n";

If you're using CGI.pm to write to disk (or anything that uses File::Temp for that matter), be aware that Perl does not get the right temporary location in its $ENV{TMPDIR}. You'll need to specify it yourself at the top of your script.

Example:

BEGIN { $ENV{TMPDIR} = "d:\\local\\temp"; }

use CGI;
my $q = new CGI;
print $q->header(-type => "text/plain");

print "Temporary folder set to $ENV{TMPDIR}\n";

Output:

Temporary folder set to d:\local\temp

See this issue for more details on File::Temp: https://github.com/projectkudu/kudu/issues/1700