Rails Deployment Alternatives

This repository contains configuration files for installing couple of alternatives for Ruby On Rails deployment.

It's purpose is mainly didatic, since I use it at workshops teaching Rails deployment, hosting, infrastructure.

But it can be equally well used to provision a clean machine with infrastructure for a Rails application deployment.

There are three recipes for the Sprinkle server provisioning tool, showing the dominant setups for deploying Rack-based applications as of today:

1. Apache as a Reverse Proxy for Mongrel

This is historically one of the first “real” setups for deploying Rails (ignoring FastCGI setups).

This setup is installed with the following command:

$ bundle exec sprinkle --script=1-rails-stack-apache-mongrel.rb

and the web server configuration for this setup is in the configurations/mongrel.conf file.

In 2006, Zed Shaw wrote Mongrel, a Ruby webserver, which could be easily proxied to a full-fledged webserver, such as Apache.

This way, multiple Mongrel instances can be launched, and the front-end web server load balances between them, serving as a reverse proxy. It also serves static assets (stylesheets, images, etc). This setup is still widely used with different application servers such as Unicorn or Thin.

You launch the application by running command:

  $ rails server mongrel --environment production

In real life, there would be more than one application server instance running. However, the mongrel_cluster Rubygem does not work with current versions of the Ruby On Rails framework, so the purpose of this recipe is purely didactic.

2. Nginx as a Reverse Proxy for Thin

A variation on this old school setup is to use the Nginx web server as a reverse proxy / load balancer for a cluster of Thin servers.

This setup is installed with the following command:

$ bundle exec sprinkle --script=2-rails-stack-nginx-thin.rb

and the web server configuration for this setup is in the configurations/thin.conf file.

In our setup, Thin is connected to Nginx via UNIX domain sockets (see article), offering more power then connecting via TCP.

You launch the application by running command:

  $ bundle exec thin --socket /tmp/thin.sock --server 3 --environment production --tag demo --rackup config.ru start

A variation on this setup would be to use the Unicorn webserver instead of Thin.

3. Phusion Passenger (mod_rails)

The latest, and most convenient alternative is the Phusion Passenger module for Apache or Nginx web servers. In fact, it is currently the recommended setup.

This setup is installed with the following command:

$ bundle exec sprinkle --script=3-rails-stack-passenger.rb

and the web server configuration for this setup is in the configurations/passenger.conf file.

Phusion Passenger is distributed and installed as a Rubygem. The package includes a installer script to check dependencies and install the module into the web server. It displays information how to setup your web server and application for deployment.

You launch the application by running command:

  $ touch tmp/restart.txt

Installation and Usage

This repository contains number of recipes and configurations for installing software packages via Sprinkle and Capistrano tools.

See packages and configurations directories for details.

You run the commands locally, and they are being run on the remote machine via Capistrano.

First, you'll need a Ubuntu based VPS reachable by SSH.

To install one of the provided stacks to the server, you need to have the Bundler gem installed locally:

$ gem install bundler

After downloading or cloning the repository, install the dependencies:

$ bundle install

Copy the deploy.example.rb file and provide the connection details to your server (SSH user, server IP):

$ cp deploy.example.rb deploy.rb

Then, you can setup a server by passing a recipe to the sprinkle tool:

$ bundle exec sprinkle --script=3-rails-stack-passenger.rb

The installation of an Apache/Passenger stack takes about 15 minutes on a Ubuntu 10.04 Server running inside VMWare (1 core, 256MB RAM, 2GB HDD) on a Mac Book Air.

You can also preview packages, their dependencies and verifications:

$ bundle exec sprinkle --test --cloud --verbose --script=3-rails-stack-passenger.rb

Information

For more information, please see the Sprinkle readme.

The recipes and configurations were adapted from these sources:

• http://github.com/crafterm/sprinkle/tree/master/examples/
• http://github.com/benschwarz/passenger-stack
• http://github.com/tristandunn/sprinkle-linode

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Karel Minarik