Mongrel users - May 2006 - Pass env var from Apache to Mongrel?

I use Apache to serve the static pages and let Mongrel handle Rails
requests via mod_rewrite/proxy.  Apache RewriteRule can set
environment variable on the fly, and this is one of the features I
used, set an env var based on domain name.

I used to use SCGI Runner which was fine as the env var was passed to
Rails via scgi protocol.  I seems can''t find a way to set env var in
Mongrel on the fly.

One work around I can think of is to append a variable to the query
string, but that''s less elegant nor secure.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Kevin

Hi Kevin,

On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 17:13 -0700, Kevin wrote:
> I use Apache to serve the static pages and let Mongrel handle Rails
> requests via mod_rewrite/proxy.  Apache RewriteRule can set
> environment variable on the fly, and this is one of the features I
> used, set an env var based on domain name.
You should look at how mod_rewrite can inject HTTP headers.  This is
commonly used when you have to translate to a different Host string, but
you can really inject any HTTP header you want.  On the Rails side it
should show up as a capitalized version like this:

X-MyBrother-Is-Jim => X_MYBROTHER_IS_JIM

And will be in the request hash like all the other parameters you can
get.

Key thing is to not put this in the request string (like you said).

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
http://www.zedshaw.com/
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/

Zed,

I did what you suggested through mod_header and it works like a charm
(well, it has to be Apache 2.0+ as RequestHeader is not available in
1.3).

Thanks for your work, Mongrel rocks.

Cheers,
Kevin