Mongrel users - Jul 2006 - URL root/serving more than one app per subdomain

Hey folks,

I have the following situation: I have a secure server, and I''d like  
to run multiple Rails apps without dealing with setting up multiple  
secure servers, with their fixed IPs, etc.  So, I want to do https:// 
secure.domain.com/app1/ and https://secure.domain.com/app2/ etc.

In lighttpd this is possible using a combination of relative_url_root  
in each app (in environment.rb), some URL handling in lighttpd.conf,  
and mod_alias, which maps "/app1" to the public directory for app1,  
etc, so that stylesheets, images, etc, get served right.

I''m trying out switching to an Apache/Pound/Mongrel setup (on  
PlanetArgon''s servers).  Pound can handle directing to different  
ports for different URLs, so I can sent /app1/ to port 3000, and / 
app2/ to port 3010, for example.  This works with separate Mongrels  
running on those different ports, except that Mongrel can''t find the  
stylesheets and other "assets".  That is, the app runs fine, but  
looks awful and has no javascript.

Yesterday as I was setting this up, I managed to get it to work by  
hacking Mongrel itself.  i added a "-u"  (--urlroot) flag to  
mongrel_rails, added a @urlroot variable to the RailsHandler, and  
added the following lines to change the request path:

In rails.rb/RailsHandler#process
	path_info = path_info[@urlroot.length, path_info.length- 
@urlroot.length] unless @urlroot.nil? or path_info[0, at urlroot.length]! 
=@urlroot

and in handlers.rb / DirHandler#process
	path_info = request.params[Const::PATH_INFO]
	path_info = path_info[urlroot.length,path_info.length- 
urlroot.length] unless urlroot.nil? or path_info[0,urlroot.length]! 
=urlroot
	req_path = can_serve path_info

I imagine there are other places where such a parameter might need to  
be added to get serving things other than rails apps to work right.   
I also didn''t try to add it to the Windows service binaries.

So, I guess my question is twofold:
1) I''m new to making changes/adding features to open source code.   
How would I go about lobbying for this feature (if not the code that  
I wrote) to be included in a release, so that when PlanetArgon  
updates their gems I can use this feature there?
2) Lacking that, how do I create a separate copy of mongrel that uses  
my changes and ignores the installed gems?

Thanks!
Asa


-----------------
Work is love made visible
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Asa S. Hopkins
MC 266-33, Pasadena, CA 91125
asa at caltech.edu
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~asa/
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