Rails - Oct 2005 - multiple rails applications from one dispatch.fcgi?

Hi, it just reciently occured to me to join the mailing lists for ruby
on rails, and I am therefore effectively a newbie.  TLDR? skip to the
last line:  I work for a corporation whose internal web applications
are becoming unmaintainable and therefore obsolete.  I, and a
coworker, are pushing ROR ( ruby on rails ) for our new internal web
standard.  I realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used
for the largest of applications, but non-the-less the desire to use
ruby in a corporate environment is still there.  I am a huge open
source fan, and therefore its very surprizing that I have a job in any
corporation.

I have, to my best ability, researched the implimentation requirements
for ROR, and I assume that apache (either 2 or 1.3), and the fcgi mod
are the best options for the environment.  Personally, I perfer lighty
but, unfortunately, the same "problems" with one server and ROR still
apply with any web server.

The problem that I am encountering is that, in order to use one web
server and fcgi, I must add a mod fcgi entry for every ROR
application, or in other words, for every dispatch.fcgi.  To me, this
is unscalable.  Alternatively, I can hack together a dispatch.fcgi. 
Note that I would like to stay away from the maintinence of hacking
any of the rails source.  One or two files, however, may be
acceptable.

My question is this:
Is there a best way to have one dispatch.fcgi for a lot of ROR applications?

Thank you,
 - travis michel

"The problem that I am encountering is that, in order to use one web
server and fcgi, I must add a mod fcgi entry for every ROR application,
or in other words, for every dispatch.fcgi.  To me, this is unscalable.
Alternatively, I can hack together a dispatch.fcgi. 
Note that I would like to stay away from the maintinence of hacking any
of the rails source.  One or two files, however, may be acceptable.
"

Nope... Doesn''t work that way.

Take a look at the actual setup for fcgi... You''ll find it''s
easier than
you think.
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowtoDeployMoreThanOneRailsAppOn
OneMachine


This might help too...
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowToSetTheBaseURLsOfYourRailsAp
ps



-----Original Message-----
From: rails-bounces-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
[mailto:rails-bounces-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org] On
Behalf Of travis michel
Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 5:13 AM
To: rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
Subject: [rails] multiple rails applications from one dispatch.fcgi?


Hi, it just reciently occured to me to join the mailing lists for ruby
on rails, and I am therefore effectively a newbie.  TLDR? skip to the
last line:  I work for a corporation whose internal web applications are
becoming unmaintainable and therefore obsolete.  I, and a coworker, are
pushing ROR ( ruby on rails ) for our new internal web standard.  I
realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used for the
largest of applications, but non-the-less the desire to use ruby in a
corporate environment is still there.  I am a huge open source fan, and
therefore its very surprizing that I have a job in any corporation.

I have, to my best ability, researched the implimentation requirements
for ROR, and I assume that apache (either 2 or 1.3), and the fcgi mod
are the best options for the environment.  Personally, I perfer lighty
but, unfortunately, the same "problems" with one server and ROR still
apply with any web server.

The problem that I am encountering is that, in order to use one web
server and fcgi, I must add a mod fcgi entry for every ROR application,
or in other words, for every dispatch.fcgi.  To me, this is unscalable.
Alternatively, I can hack together a dispatch.fcgi. 
Note that I would like to stay away from the maintinence of hacking any
of the rails source.  One or two files, however, may be acceptable.

My question is this:
Is there a best way to have one dispatch.fcgi for a lot of ROR
applications?

Thank you,
 - travis michel _______________________________________________
Rails mailing list
Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

On Oct 27, 2005, at 3:13 AM, travis michel wrote:
> Hi, it just reciently occured to me to join the mailing lists for ruby
> on rails, and I am therefore effectively a newbie.  TLDR? skip to the
> last line:  I work for a corporation whose internal web applications
> are becoming unmaintainable and therefore obsolete.  I, and a
> coworker, are pushing ROR ( ruby on rails ) for our new internal web
> standard.  I realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used
> for the largest of applications, but non-the-less the desire to use
> ruby in a corporate environment is still there.  I am a huge open
> source fan, and therefore its very surprizing that I have a job in any
> corporation.
>
> I have, to my best ability, researched the implimentation requirements
> for ROR, and I assume that apache (either 2 or 1.3), and the fcgi mod
> are the best options for the environment.  Personally, I perfer lighty
> but, unfortunately, the same "problems" with one server and ROR
still
> apply with any web server.
>
> The problem that I am encountering is that, in order to use one web
> server and fcgi, I must add a mod fcgi entry for every ROR
> application, or in other words, for every dispatch.fcgi.  To me, this
> is unscalable.  Alternatively, I can hack together a dispatch.fcgi.
> Note that I would like to stay away from the maintinence of hacking
> any of the rails source.  One or two files, however, may be
> acceptable.
>
> My question is this:
> Is there a best way to have one dispatch.fcgi for a lot of ROR  
> applications?
>
> Thank you,
>  - travis michel
Hey Travis-
     Rails dispatch.fcgi does not work that way and I would imagine  
that what you are proposing would be much more of a pain then just  
setting up proper fcgi''s. One way to run many rails apps with the  
least pain as far as shared resources is IMHO to run apache as a  
front end and a single instance of lighttpd/fcgi for each rails app.  
Lighttpd is great for your rails applications, I find it much easier  
to configure and much less temperamental than apache/fcgi. You can do  
this with apaches mod_proxy something like this:

<VirtualHost example.com>
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www. example.com
     ProxyPass / http://example.com:81/
     ProxyPassReverse / http://example.com:81/
</VirtualHost>


     And the you run each rails app with its own lighttpd/fcgi  
instance and create on of these vhosts, each with an individual port  
to themselves. Lighttpd takes up very little resources and is fast.  
Also this way when you need to take down and restart one of your  
rails apps you can do so without affecting all the other apps on the  
server. You can just leave apache running and restart lighty. Take a  
look at the site in my sig, that site runs rails and runs on just  
lighttpd/fcgi by itself because the whole box is dedicated to the one  
rails app.

Cheers-

-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
http://yakimaherald.com
ezra-gdxLOakOTQ9oetBuM9ipNAC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org
509-577-7732

>I realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used
for the largest of applications [...]

Anyone else have a "huh!?" moment at that statement? :-)

I wonder how he got that impression -- if it''s due to something in the
way the documentation is presented we should probably look into fixing
it.

[OT]
I would agree with that Obie. The last thing I think of one someone
mentions rails is large and complex. Dont get me wrong, its not that
the internals of rails aren''t complex, but using it is far from when
compared to other solutions.
[/OT]

-Nick

On 10/27/05, Obie Fernandez
<obiefernandez-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
wrote:
> >I realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used
> for the largest of applications [...]
>
> Anyone else have a "huh!?" moment at that statement? :-)
>
> I wonder how he got that impression -- if it''s due to something in
the
> way the documentation is presented we should probably look into fixing
> it.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

Nick, Obie,
> >I realize that ROR is a complex system and may only be used
> for the largest of applications [...]
>
> Anyone else have a "huh!?" moment at that statement? :-)
I''m sorry, I can see how that statement caused a "huh!?"
moment... I was
unclear. ROR is really easy to use, and the documentation is good!

Thank you for the help guys. It looks like im doing something contrived, and
therefore seems "complex".

Ezra, It did not occur to me to use two web servers. I will look into this.
thank you!

- travis


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