ironruby-rack

Run Rack-based web applications on IIS with IronRuby

Deploying on IIS

Setup

1. Install Rack

   igem install rack

2. Install IIS (this set of features might be overkill)

   • Control Panel -> Programs -> Turn Windows Features on or off
   • Internet Information Services
     • World Wide Web Services, enable:
       • Application Development Features
       • Common HTTP Features -> Default Document, Directory Browsing, HTTP Redirection and Static Content
       • Performance features -> Static Content Compression
       • Security -> Request Filtering and Windows Authentication
     • Web Management Tools, enable:
       • IIS 6 Management Compatibility -> IIS Metabase and IIS6 configuration compatibility
       • IIS Management Console
       • IIS Management Script and Tools
       • IIS Management Service

3. Give permissions to IIS

   • IIS needs to have permission to open files in this project, as well as in the Ruby standard library. Grant IIS_IUSER permission to this directory, as well as the Ruby standard library (usually C:\ruby\lib\ruby)

4. Open IronRack.sln in Visual Studio

   • Click "OK" to prompts about creating virtual directories, otherwise not all the project files will load.
   • Right-click on IronRuby.Rack.App and select "Set as StartUp Project".

Building

Simply build the solution in Visual Studio. It will build IronRuby, as well as IronRuby.Rack.dll.

Running

Click "Debug" -> "Start without Debugging" to run the Rack Application, which will just navigate to http://localhost/IronRuby.Rack.Example

How it works

• Uses ASP.NET's HttpHandlers to
  • Registering IronRuby.Rack in the Rack-based application's Web.config
  • Load a Rack-based application on startup (HttpHandlerFactory and Application constructor).
    • Initializes Rack and runs the application's config.ru, which tells Rack what application (any Ruby object that responds to 'call')
  • Intercept web requests (HttpHandler.ProcessRequest)
    • Creates a Request and a Response, and passes it off to IIS.Handle which:
      • Set up the environment according to the Rack specification
      • Calls Application.Call with the prepared environment, which delegates to the Rack application's "call" method (registered in the config.ru file). All C# <-> Ruby interaction happens in the RubyEngine.
      • Rack application does its thing (process Rails/Sinatra request, or deal with things itself) and returns a response according to the Rack specification.
      • Takes the Rack response and pass the appropriate data to the IIS response (response body, status, headers)