README

= Rack, a modular Ruby webserver interface

Rack provides a minimal, modular and adaptable interface for developing
web applications in Ruby.  By wrapping HTTP requests and responses in
the simplest way possible, it unifies and distills the API for web
servers, web frameworks, and software in between (the so-called
middleware) into a single method call.

The exact details of this are described in the Rack specification,
which all Rack applications should conform to.

== Future specification changes

PLEASE NOTE: In versions of Rack LATER than 0.4, the following
changes will be commited to the Rack specification:

* 1xx, 204 and 304 status codes MUST not contain a Content-Type.
* A valid Content-Length header MUST be provided for non 1xx, 204 and 304
  responses with a Transfer-Encoding of "identity" (default).
  The Content-Length MUST be the same as the sum of the byte-sizes of
  the chunks.
* The REQUEST_METHOD may be any HTTP token.

Internal Rack modules have been updated to follow this behavior, but
the Rack 0.4 Lint does NOT check it yet for compatibility reasons.
Please update your libraries accordingly.

== Supported web servers

The included *handlers* connect all kinds of web servers to Rack:
* Mongrel
* EventedMongrel
* WEBrick
* FCGI
* CGI
* SCGI
* LiteSpeed

These web servers include Rack handlers in their distributions:
* Ebb
* Fuzed
* Phusion Passenger (which is mod_rack for Apache)
* Thin

Any valid Rack app will run the same on all these handlers, without
changing anything.

== Supported web frameworks

The included *adapters* connect Rack with existing Ruby web frameworks:
* Camping

These frameworks include Rack adapters in their distributions:
* Coset
* Halcyon
* Mack
* Maveric
* Merb
* Racktools::SimpleApplication
* Ramaze
* Sinatra
* Vintage
* Waves

Ruby on Rails can be run with the adapter included with Thin, which
will be merged into a later Rack version.

Current links to these projects can be found at
http://ramaze.net/#other-frameworks

== Available middleware

Between the server and the framework, Rack can be customized to your
applications needs using middleware, for example:
* Rack::URLMap, to route to multiple applications inside the same process.
* Rack::CommonLogger, for creating Apache-style logfiles.
* Rack::ShowException, for catching unhandled exceptions and
  presenting them in a nice and helpful way with clickable backtrace.
* Rack::File, for serving static files.
* ...many others!

All these components use the same interface, which is described in
detail in the Rack specification.  These optional components can be
used in any way you wish.

== Convenience

If you want to develop outside of existing frameworks, implement your
own ones, or develop middleware, Rack provides many helpers to create
Rack applications quickly and without doing the same web stuff all
over:
* Rack::Request, which also provides query string parsing and
  multipart handling.
* Rack::Response, for convenient generation of HTTP replies and
  cookie handling.
* Rack::MockRequest and Rack::MockResponse for efficient and quick
  testing of Rack application without real HTTP round-trips.

== rackup

rackup is a useful tool for running Rack applications, which uses the
Rack::Builder DSL to configure middleware and build up applications
easily.

rackup automatically figures out the environment it is run in, and
runs your application as FastCGI, CGI, or standalone with Mongrel or
WEBrick---all from the same configuration.

== Quick start

Try the lobster!

Either with the embedded WEBrick starter:

    ruby -Ilib lib/rack/lobster.rb

Or with rackup:

    bin/rackup -Ilib example/lobster.ru 

By default, the lobster is found at http://localhost:9292.

== Installing with RubyGems

A Gem of Rack is available.  You can install it with:

    gem install rack

I also provide a local mirror of the gems (and development snapshots)
at my site:

    gem install rack --source http://chneukirchen.org/releases/gems

== Running the tests

Testing Rack requires the test/spec testing framework:

    gem install test-spec

There are two rake-based test tasks:

    rake test       tests all the fast tests (no Handlers or Adapters)
    rake fulltest   runs all the tests

The fast testsuite has no dependencies outside of the core Ruby
installation and test-spec.

To run the test suite completely, you need:

  * camping
  * mongrel
  * fcgi
  * ruby-openid
  * memcache-client

The full set of tests test FCGI access with lighttpd (on port
9203) so you will need lighttpd installed as well as the FCGI
libraries and the fcgi gem:

Download and install lighttpd:

    http://www.lighttpd.net/download

Installing the FCGI libraries:

    curl -O http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
    tar xzvf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
    cd fcgi-2.4.0
    ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
    make
    sudo make install
    cd ..

Installing the Ruby fcgi gem:

    gem install fcgi

Furthermore, to test Memcache sessions, you need memcached (will be
run on port 11211) and memcache-client installed.

== History

* March 3rd, 2007: First public release 0.1.

* May 16th, 2007: Second public release 0.2.
  * HTTP Basic authentication.
  * Cookie Sessions.
  * Static file handler.
  * Improved Rack::Request.
  * Improved Rack::Response.
  * Added Rack::ShowStatus, for better default error messages.
  * Bug fixes in the Camping adapter.
  * Removed Rails adapter, was too alpha.

* February 26th, 2008: Third public release 0.3.
  * LiteSpeed handler, by Adrian Madrid.
  * SCGI handler, by Jeremy Evans.
  * Pool sessions, by blink.
  * OpenID authentication, by blink.
  * :Port and :File options for opening FastCGI sockets, by blink.
  * Last-Modified HTTP header for Rack::File, by blink.
  * Rack::Builder#use now accepts blocks, by Corey Jewett.
    (See example/protectedlobster.ru)
  * HTTP status 201 can contain a Content-Type and a body now.
  * Many bugfixes, especially related to Cookie handling.

* August 21th, 2008: Fourth public release 0.4.
  * New middleware, Rack::Deflater, by Christoffer Sawicki.
  * OpenID authentication now needs ruby-openid 2.
  * New Memcache sessions, by blink.
  * Explicit EventedMongrel handler, by Joshua Peek <josh@joshpeek.com>
  * Rack::Reloader is not loaded in rackup development mode.
  * rackup can daemonize with -D.
  * Many bugfixes, especially for pool sessions, URLMap, thread safety
    and tempfile handling.
  * Improved tests.
  * Rack moved to Git.

== Contact

Please mail bugs, suggestions and patches to
<mailto:rack-devel@googlegroups.com>.

Mailing list archives are available at
<http://groups.google.com/group/rack-devel>

Git repository (branches rebased on master are most welcome):
* http://github.com/chneukirchen/rack
* http://git.vuxu.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=rack.git

You are also welcome to join the #rack channel on irc.freenode.net.

== Thanks to

* blink for the Pool sessions, Memcache sessions, OpenID support, many
  tweaks, patches and bugreports.
* Michael Fellinger, for the helpful discussion, bugfixes and a better
  Rack::Request interface.
* Adrian Madrid, for the LiteSpeed handler.
* Christoffer Sawicki, for the first Rails adapter and Rack::Deflater.
* Tim Fletcher, for the HTTP authentication code.
* Luc Heinrich for the Cookie sessions, the static file handler and bugfixes.
* Armin Ronacher, for the logo and racktools.
* Aredridel, for bug fixing.
* Stephen Bannasch, for bug reports and documentation.
* Gary Wright, for proposing a better Rack::Response interface.
* Jonathan Buch, for improvements regarding Rack::Response.
* Armin Röhrl, for tracking down bugs in the Cookie generator.
* Alexander Kellett for testing the Gem and reviewing the announce.
* Marcus Rückert, for help with configuring and debugging lighttpd.
* The WSGI team for the well-done and documented work they've done and
  Rack builds up on.
* All bug reporters and patch contributers not mentioned above.

== Copyright

Copyright (C) 2007, 2008 Christian Neukirchen <http://purl.org/net/chneukirchen>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to
deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the
rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER 
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

== Links

Rack:: <http://rack.rubyforge.org/>
Rack's Rubyforge project:: <http://rubyforge.org/projects/rack>
rack-devel mailing list:: <http://groups.google.com/group/rack-devel>

Camping:: <http://camping.rubyforge.org/>
Ramaze:: <http://ramaze.rubyforge.org/>
Maveric:: <http://maveric.rubyforge.org/>

Christian Neukirchen:: <http://chneukirchen.org/>