Nginx and Phusion Passenger (Configuring mutliple Virtual Hosts) - ruby-on-rails

I am trying to setup multiple Ruby on Rails apps on my local machine with Phusion Passenger and Nginx. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a good solution for doing this with a google search. Some solutions I've seen included creating a symlink but essentially what I would like to do is have a different nginx.conf per project and have Phusion Passenger load that file up from perhaps ~/Sites/project/config/nginx.conf in my Ruby on Rails app. Is this possible? If so, how can I achieve that? and If not, what other solutions are there that might point me in the right direction?
Thanks for your help!
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Possible Solution
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Using RVM I created a new gemset, I then installed the phusion passenger gem under that gemset and during the installation of nginx, I specified the nginx to be installed under ~/Sites/project/config/
This essentially created the following directories:
project
config
conf
sbin
Inside of the project/config/conf exists the nginx.conf file which /project/config/sbin/nginx uses to create its own virtual host. Although I'm sure I can use my centralized nginx configuration at /opt/nginx , the difference is that this helps create a project that can be easily distributable to other devs who are working on the project as well. Any thoughts/concerns?

Since you're on Mac, try out http://pow.cx/
To create a new project/site
cd ~/.pow
ln -s /path/to/myapp
Then you'll access via http://myapp.dev

This looks like it might do it for you (see the sections starting with "upstream ..."). What this basically does is point the incoming requests to different server clusters (even if running locally) based on the request URL.
http://purab.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/how-to-host-multiple-rails-site-on-nginx/
This example uses Mongrel clusters on the back end, but just compare it to your current config, and make adjustments for your specific back end.

Related

How to set up server and deploy user for RoR on CentOS?

I have already installed ruby throught rbenv, rails through gems and set up nginx service that do port forwarding to localhost:3000 on which puma (RoR server) is listening. Both are being run by root and its all working fine. It all was done from root directory. I also wonder if its good way to do just port forwarding, cause when I looked at some tutorials about it they were way more complicated (making puma socket and make nginx to point at socket, using passenger etc).
Also for safety and access reasons, I'd like have seperate user with less priviledges, which is supporting only this one app and dont have access to anything else. I tried to make deploy user, I moved whole app to /home/deploy and I couldn't run anything from there as deploy user.
[deploy#RaV-RoR ~]$ ruby
-bash: ruby: command not found
I am totally new at this and I couldn't really find any tutorial about this. Do I need to install ruby and everything again in /home/deploy? How do I do that if I dont have permissions to install ruby? Should I give root priviledges to deploy user and then take them away in order to install all those thing? Or can I access them somehow using root catalogue.
I'd like to do it "good way" and my question is how to do it.

Which folder should i put into filezilla for ROR?

I have the following directory structure:
Which files must I drag into remote site of Filezilla for this ROR project?
When deploying a ROR project you should must use a VPN server. Have you used git for your project? Try to deploy in heroku first. To test your site and have a good practice when deploying rails.
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/getting-started-with-rails4
The answer to the question would be: everything
But most likely, copying everything is not gonna make it run, here is why: Rails applications live in separate processes that have to be specifically maintained. On your dev machine, you do this with bundle exec rails server. This is a key difference to how the apache php module works for php apps: There the php interpreter is embedded within the apache process and therefore shares its life cycle automatically.
If you have control over the server you are deploying to, I recommend to start with the Phusion passenger apache module. It takes care of starting your rails processes as needed. In case you are using ubuntu 14:04, I can't recommend to just apt-get install libapche2-mod-passenger because I had many problems with it.
If the server is maintained by somebody else, I'd ask this someone for a solution.
I hope this helps.

What, where and how to upload Ruby on Rails application files to the VPS?

I am using Ruby on Rails 3.0.9 and I would like to publish my web site. I already set my VPS running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and the capistrano gem (this one I think as well as possible). Now, what I need to do is to upload all files to the www/project_name directory (I am on Mac OS)...
What I have to do to accomplish that?
You don't need your deployment machine to have Capistrano. Capistrano automates a bunch of tasks that I suggest you do at least one manually so you know what's going on. Sooner or later, you'll be debugging some Capistrano task, so you may as well figure out the guts sooner or later.
Coarsely, what you need to do is to basically duplicate your development environment on your production machine. If you have it on version control, you can git clone or svn whateveritis on your production machine. If not, you can scp it over with scp /local/rails/dir remoteuser#remotehost:www/projectname.
At this point, you should actually do the remainder of the work on the server. Since you've managed to install Capistrano, I assume you're familiar with the basics of making your way around SSH.
Once the code's over, you have to install the prerequisites. If you're using 3.0.9 you should be able to run bundle install --deployment, where the deployment flag basically tells bundler to use the identical gem set as on your development machine.
When that's done, actually getting the server online will vary based on your setup. If you're using non-standalone passenger, just follow any of the many guides at this point. If you're running standalone passenger or thin or unicorn or any other standalone rails server, go ahead and start that in daemon mode (so it won't quit on you when you end your SSH session) and make sure you se the production flag. You can either start it in sudo and have it listen on port 80 (e.g., sudo thin start -d -p 80) or have it listen on a higher-number port and use a reverse proxy on your WWW-facing server. The instructions for how to reverse proxy are all over the internet.
Let me know if you have any questions.
You have half of a deployment solution with Capistrano. Commonly Passenger is used as the other half, which sits on the server and loads your app. To accomplish this, usually, SSH keys are used. There are numerous tutorials on how to set this up. One of my favorites written by Dan Benjamin can be found on his blog Hivelogic.
Edited to provide more begginer info:
Capistrano begginer's guide from the Capistrano wiki.
Passenger Stand Alone Guide from the Passenger website.
Be sure to check out the other guides for the webserver of your choice when you're ready.
These guides will give you the background you need to get a local Passenger & Capistrano deployment going. These guides provide the knowledge you need to get achieve what you want.
Simple and short sample of deployment via SSH http://alexeypetrushin.github.com/vfs/ssh_deployment.html

How do I published a Ruby on Rails application online?

I have a simple Ruby on Rails application that works through a localhost test (both using sqlite, or ruby mysql2 gem).
I have a web server ready to upload my app online.
I understand that I need to create a new mysql database, which is no problem, and obviously add the connect info in the database.yml, but how do I propertly upload the whole thing (app root) to a public dir of my site?
Rails itself contains a few links to get you started with deployment. I was in your boat a while ago, and I got started with Passenger and Apache within half an hour (although I did have some light Apache experience going in).
Get started just to prove to yourself you can do it
Not that it's a good idea, but the balls to the wall easiest way to "deploy" is the following (assuming you've already pulled your application into your deployment environment, created your database, and run rake db:migrate and any application-specific steps like bundle install on Rails 3):
rails server -p 80 on Rails 3 (./script/server -p 80 on Rails 2).
There is no step 2.
This has to be run on a machine for which you have administrative rights and for which port 80 is not already being listened to by another application. This is suboptimal in many ways, most apparent of which is that it won't allow for virtual hosting (i.e., it won't cooperate with other "websites" being run from that server), but it's a good baby step to dip your feet into.
Go to the machine's FQDN or in fact any hostname that resolves to the machine's IP address (via a hosts file or an A record), and you'll see your application.
Now do it properly
You're going to want to do the following to bring your application "up to speed":
Deploy it behind a virtual host behind a webserver application like Apache
Use a production-oriented deployment setup (WEBrick's single-threadedness, among other factors, make it unsuitable for production)
Actually use the "production" rails environment
I'll be recommending a very, very typical Apache/Passenger deployment environment. The reason is that (at least it seems to me) this particular stack is the most thoroughly supported across the Internet, so if you need to get help, you'll have the easiest time with this.
1. Set up Apache
I don't want to sound like a tool, but setting up Apache (if it's not already set up on your deployment environment) is left as an exercise for the reader. It also varies enough across platforms that I couldn't possible write a catchall guide. Coarsely, use your distribution's package manager (for Ubuntu, this is apt-get) to get it hooked up.
2. Set up Passenger
Passenger installation is even easier. You just run one command, and their guide runs you through all the steps. At this point, in your Rails application root, you'll be able to run passenger start instead of rails s to have Passenger fill the role that WEBrick once did.
3. Hook up Passenger with Apache
The Passenger guide fairly thoroughly documents, step by step, how to set it all up. The ServerName attribute in Apache's VirtualHost entry should be set to your hostname. Passenger will "find" the Rails application from the public directory you give Apache, and when you restart Apache, the first time the server gets a request for a page, Passenger will hook up your Rails application and start serving up files.
I'm not performing these steps as I'm writing this guide, so I'm not sure to what extent this is done automatically, but make sure that the site is enabled via a2ensite (in the case that you're putting this VirtualHost node in the sites-available directory) and that Passenger is enabled via a2enmod.
Make sure your production environment is ready
This is likely to be the first time you're using the production environment. Most rake tasks don't automatically act on the production environment, but you can conveniently force them to by including RAILS_ENV=production inline with any rake tasks. The one you'll very likely be running is rake db:migrate RAILS_ENV=production. The bundler in Rails 3 works independently of environment.
5. Go
Restart Apache. The specifics on how to do this will vary by distribution, so you'll have to look it up. For Ubuntu, apache2ctl restart does it for me.
Visit your hostname as you defined in ServerName, and you should be seeing your application up and running.
I've heard gems like capistrano can assist with this.
https://github.com/capistrano/capistrano
Heroku is an excellent (free) option: http://docs.heroku.com/quickstart
Also, deploying to Heroku is as easy as it gets!

Rails application on shared hosting?

Is there a way that I can deploy my locally made rails app on a shared host that has Ruby installed?
Capistrano to deploy and (Mongrel or Passenger... preferably the latter... or if you HAVE to, FastCGI although FastCGI is pretty slow with Rails) to serve.
If you have a shared host you'll have to vendor your Rails version and all your gems, as you probably won't have access to install gems. Even if you did, you won't want Rails picking old versions of things.
Personally, I would use Capistrano. There are plenty of books and tutorials around that will tell you how to use it to deploy Rails applications. It is very easy to configure.
Dreamhost supports Rails, many others probably do also.
As for installation of your app: it depends a bit on what's already available on your shared host, and what you're allow to do / install / configure there. For Dreamhost, here's their documentation. Other shared hosting solutions may or may not be similar depending on their policy.
The best way I've found is to install the passenger gem. Once you've uploaded your app to your account all you need to do is add a few lines to your .htaccess file and you should be off.
Definitely capistrano + git (git, if you have SSH access, like f.e. in HostingRails shared host), nothing can be easier.
Neat Capistrano guide: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10100
How to config Capistrano + git: http://github.com/guides/deploying-with-capistrano
Some nice Capistrano recipes: http://github.com/josh/slicehost
Assuming your http server is nginx or apache, install Phusion Passenger
On the Passenger site, there are very good docs for configuring Apache/nginx with Rails
As a first step, just copy your Rails app somewhere to the host and get Passenger working
Once you have that working, you will need a better way to deploy/update the app; as others have suggested, Capistrano is a popular way to do it and you should have no problem finding some tutorials online to help you do it
I have done steps 1-3 and it is incredibly easy and works perfectly fine (I was just too lazy to do step 4).
Found a good reference : REFERENCE LINK this will help to deploy ROR App on a shared host.

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