We are going to be hosting around 20 client sites for Ruby on Rails. We need the best Control Panel for our Server/VPS what do you recommend? I've researched and can find no good blogs or posts about this exact subject.
Some of my findings:
1) Cpanel does not seem good as it doesn't support Rails 3.2.8
2) Would just SSH manual config management be enough? Some people have told me that is what people do with capistrano. But how do you control resources like bandwidth, cpu usage?
3) In the future we would like to offer a free trial signup that auto-creates the accounts and installs our app.
The ideal solution would be similar to cpanel, but allow Rails 3.2.8 running with Apache/Passenger
I think many Rails firms build out their own control panel in Rails. If you're on one VPS, this should be very easy. (If you have multiples VPSs, it's still doable, but your control panel app will have to do everything via SSH, perhaps using Capistrano.)
In your control panel Rails app, you can create some models that know how to do various server administration tasks. For example, if you're using Apache, one of your models will probably have to know how to edit http.conf to add a new virtual host.
Your idea about automatically creating the apps on signup can be done this way too. Write some model logic that checks the app out from source control, creates the virtual hosts or whatever, creates the database (if each client gets their own), etc.
Also consider pushing some of the tasks onto a job queue, rather than handling them synchronously. (I'm a big fan of resque). This is a good idea for tasks that take a long time, such as checkout from source control.
You may even want to extract all this server admin functionality into a gem for your private use. Then, you can easily perform the same tasks from custom scripts outside the Rails app, should you need to.
Related
I know it's gonna be a very broad question and I'm pretty sure this is not anything new in todays world, but I really don't now where to start on this one.
I've started working on a rails-based service that would allow users to create, configure and manage their projects (basicaly copies of a single app with customization). The projects would be run on a subdomain with an option of connecting their own domain. (Quite similar to how SquareSpace and Wix and many other website building services handle their websites)
I want these projects to be as flexible and customizable as possible (including the visual design, some additional features etc) while maintaing ease of setup and updates for the codebase itself.
So the questions I start with:
Should each project be a separate app (basicaly a copy out of the
same repo) with its own configs, database, nginx and unicorn
configs, etc. or should I keep all in 1 app and differenciate them
with different configs and maybe databases and assets?
If it's better to keep everything separated...
... what's the best setup process (provided that I have basic configuration to start with)?
... how would I be able to update them all (with bugfixes, new features, performance improvements etc.) from one place?
If I keep all the projects in the same app...
... how should I manage the configuration concurency between projects?
... how do I separate the data and assets?
As always, I'd be grateful for any sufficient help I can get.
I have no experience building these kind of things and maybe there is an easy solution I'm not aware of. But my answer may give you some ideas/pointers to start with.
1) It's hard to give an accurate answer but based on the high personalization criteria and the "copies of a single app" you talk about, I would go for an architecture more PAAS-like than SAAS-like. So separated apps.
2.1) You may want to consider a setting using:
A main rails app, with a main webserver and a main nginx conf. A wildcard domain.
A bunch of dynamically managed docker containers. Each container is initialized from your single app, and then personalized by the user. User is associated to its containers through the main rails app. When a container is created from the main app, the main nginx config is updated (i.e. by adding a file in sites-enabled which define a new 'server' that bind the open port of the new container, and the right 'server_name').
Each contained rails app ship an unique and shared rails engine. The rails engine is shipped by adding the corresponding gem in the Gemfile so it can be updated.
2.2) You update the 'shared rails engine' gem. You can then run bundle install in each containers.
People interested in these kind of setups may consider tools like dokku and deis.
Consider a multi-tenant architecture. We've used it effectively for fleet-genius.com.
The following link provides a good overview of the architecture from a Rails point of view.
http://blog.elbowroomstudios.com/zero-to-multitenant-in-15-minutes-a-rails-walkthrough/
TL;DR:
Assets, partials, layouts, gem configurations, other code shared among apps
Different database for every app
Ability to update codebase across all apps at once, not affecting custom code on client's site
Apartment? Rails Engine? CDN?
I'd like to have certain elements (admin navbar and sidebar, devise configuration (aside from :host), as well as other bits) available on all of my client's sites. That's great and all, but I'd also like to be able to update my codebase in once, and push it out (preferably with git), to ALL of my customer's sites, to insure they have the latest code I've written.
I've been looking into creating an Engine for base functionality and creating a CDN for assets, but I'd still manually have to do any interface changes (such as adding a link in the admin navbar) by hand with every customer's project.
Can apartment solve this problem, and still allow each customer to have their own unique codebase/git repo that I use for their own website?
I know I'm not doing the best job of accurately describing my issue, so if you'd like me to clarify anything, please ask.
Any reading material would be appreciated.
EDIT: I should add I'm currently using Deis on an AWS cluster for production.
So I am starting out on company project that will have several components:
At first...
Job list
Client profile creation and management
User administration and access (login, signup, roles, etc)
later...
Messaging
Schedule
Basic reporting
way later...
Deeper analysis and bi
I'm wondering if it makes sense for each bullet item to be its own rails project, self contained and modular (if that is indeed the case); or if it's just best for it to be in the same app. I could envision a situation where each module could operate so independently of each other that it wouldn't need the rest (except for the user funcionality) and another situation where all modules would be used together.
It seems like to me that many tasks can be handled with a lighter framework like Sinatra (and then situated physically under the rails app). It also seems like it would be a lot of overhead to have several rails apps running on a server. But I am not totally aware of all the pluses and minuses to operating each scenario.
I know this is kind of a general question that is bound to get a lot of "it depends" kind of responses (and rightfully so) I was looking for opinions/examples of how you setup this kind/your kind of project in rails. I am a quasi noob so be gentle.
Thanks in advance!
Generally speaking I would consider a website to be a suitable target for a Rails app. Each part of the app can have its own namespaces within the app, so the app has some structure internally, but they should all be one application. Consider things like sessions, where you want a user to login and use whatever features of the site you want. You want those sessions in one application without a user having to login to different sections.
Saying that, if there is complex or extended functionality that isn't part of the MVC architecture (say talking to an external API, data-mining etc), then you could offset that to a separate project and a include it as a Gem in your application. You would still have one main Rails application that includes those Gems.
You might also want to bundle together a section of your project into a reusable Rails engine that can be loaded into multiple projects. For example, Devise handles user login and management. It is a Rails engine, bundled as a Gem, that you include in your project.
Another example from Meducation (one of my sites). I'm in the process of extracting our email tracking system out into its own Rails engine as I feel its functionality sits alongside Meducation and is not a core part of it. I can then use it in other projects as well.
In your specific example, I think your requirements fit fine in one Rails application.
I am trying to build a CMS I can use to host multiple sites. I know I'm going to end up reinventing the wheel a million times with this project, so I'm thinking about extending an existing open source Ruby on Rails CMS to meet my needs.
One of those needs is to be able to run multiple sites, while using only one code-base. That way, when there's an update I want to make, I can update it in one place, and the change is reflected on all of the sites. I think that this will be able to scale by running multiple instances of the application.
I think that I can use the domain/subdomain to determine which data to display. For example, someone goes to subdomain1.mysite.com and the application looks in the database for the content for subdomain1.
The problem I see is with most pre-built CMS solutions, they are only designed to host one site, including the one I want to use. So the database is structured to work with one site. However, I had the idea that I could overcome this by "creating a new database" for each site, then specifying which database to connect to based on the domain/subdomain as I mentioned above.
I'm thinking of hosting this on Heroku, so I'm wondering what my options for this might be. I'm not very familiar with Amazon S3, or Amazon SimpleDB, but I feel like there's some sort of "cloud database" that would make this solution a lot more realistic, than creating a new MySQL database for each site.
What do you think? Am I thinking about this the wrong way? What advice do you have to offer in this area?
I've worked on a Rails app like this, and the way it was done there was named-based virtual hosts, with db entries for each site running. Each record was scoped to a site if necessary (blog posts, etc.) while users would have access to all sites running out of that db. Administrator permissions could be global or scoped to one or more sites.
You're absolutely correct when you say you'll reinvent the wheel a million times during the project. Plugins will likely require hacking on top of the CMS itself.
In my situation, it ended up being a waste of almost a million dollars of company money to build that codebase to run multiple sites while still being able to cater to the whims of each client site. It worked, but was not very maintainable due to the number of site-specific hacks that subsequently entered the codebase. You may be able to make it work if you don't have to worry about catering to specific client sites running on your platform.
In the end, you're going to need a layer of indirection to handle the different sites regardless of methodology. We ended up putting it in the database itself. If you go with the different-db-for-each-site method you mentioned, you'll put that layer in your code instead. I'm not sure which one is the better method.
I hope you're able to pull this off. I failed.
Also, as I learned today, Heroku offers postgres instead of mysql for rails apps.
There's James Stewart's Theme Support Plugin for Rails 2.3, and lucasefe's themes_for_rails gem for Rails 3+.
I just started using the 2.3 version and it's working well so far.
It's an application that we use internally at the office that I would like to offer as a hosted service for anyone.
How can I do that without making major code changes?
The first thing that occurs to me is to have the app select which database to connect to based on the domain.
So each instance of the app would have its own database, but all instances would share the same code.
The only changes required to the code would be the database selection.
Is this approach maintainable? I've heard wordpress.com does this and that it offers a couple of advantages. I'm mainly looking to do it this way to avoid have to scope my entire set of database queries to a certain site within the same database.
Thanks!
The simplest way to do this is to clone the application, and create another server instance to handle it. This actually the way I handle multiple wordpress blogs on my server
Pro:
This process can be streamlined into a utility script.
Can be easily maintained if symlinks are used for the common code. IE: Everything but branding and some of the things in the config directory.
Cons:
- If you're using passenger it will require an apache restart for each new instance.
- Same if you're using Apache to route subdomains on different virtual hosts to different mongrel clusters.
However the better way comes from the question: Rails - Separate Database Per Subdomain
The method in the accepted answer is much more robust. It might require more changes than you're looking for, but it has all the benefits without the drawbacks of any other methods. Each new instance requires a new entry in the master database with the table name and other instance specific information. You'll also want custom rake task to build the database for each new instance.
I would suggest switching the database connection and adding a view_path based on the domain, I have posted code in this question.
I hope this helps!
I wouldn't do this with multiple databases as you mentioned. Keeping all your schemas/migrations in sync with all the db's could become painful.
I would look into simply making it a multi-tenant app where you have some sort of "Account" model and then all your existing models are scoped to it ... in other words, if this was a blog app, your Account has_many :posts, etc.
With this approach, you can identify accounts by subdomain ... have people choose their subdomain when they create an account and go from there.
It's pretty straightforward to do. If you need add billing into the mix, you might look at the SaaS Railskit (which handles all the signup and subdomain stuff) or Chargify.
You can also identify accounts Twitter-style ... with http://myapp.com/someuser