NotRocketSurgery: nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option

nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option

kit — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:13:00 -0400

This article has moved over to our sister spin-off blog, RubyJudo, which focuses on more arcane technical topics than NotRocketSurgery.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by JD

Fri, 04 May 2007 20:13:33 -0400

I’ve now been using nginx in production since October (as announced in nginx + ssl + rails) and am very happy with its stability and features. But, that does not mean that lighttpd has dropped off my horizon. For one, lighttpd-1.5.0’s mod_proxy_core has more advanced load balancing techniques than nginx’s simple round-robin technique (you’ll have to dig through the lighttpd blog to find the details). I also find lighttpd’s automatic spawn-fcgi ability convenient for using PHP (e.g., for phpMyAdmin). As far as Rails, if Igor were to implement a more advanced mod_proxy module I think you would be completely right.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by Dan

Fri, 04 May 2007 01:25:04 -0400

It’s been 8 months since this post was made, and in the comments they said it would be 3-7 weeks for a new LightTPD; and 1.5 still isn’t here yet.

If you’re holding off to try Nginx, trust me, don’t. Its stable, and developing at a pace that is much quicker than LightTPD.

I predict that within a year or so, LightTPD won’t even be on the map when talking about Rails deployment; or it will be placed intothe same category that Apache and FCGI are in now.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by todd

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 15:02:53 -0400

to get nginx running at boot on gentoo, do:

rc-update -a nginx default

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by Yar

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:24:04 -0500

Dor Kalev: I cannot open your page now, but the guess is that HTC files are prevented from showing by the same configuration directive that hides .htaccess .htpassword etc. Inspect your config file closely.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by Dor Kalev

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:49:51 -0500

Hi, I also use mongrel+nginx in the same way you do. I have a problem now that cracks my mind - HTC files.

Mongrel shows the menu on mouse over on INTERNET EXPLORER @ http://maoz.octava.co.il:3000/x/test.html While when going through Nginx to the Mongrel @ http://maoz.octava.co.il/x/test.html it doesn’t

both mongrel & ngnix are configured to support ”.htc”s nginx even comes HTC ready from the beginning.

any idea?

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by ben

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 16:03:00 -0500

This looks like a worthy front-end for mongrel clusters. I had a quick play and it worked perfectly for my rails apps, however I also require proxying to apache for a number of domains. Currently I have a ‘catch all’ virtual host with Pound (UrlGroup ”.*”) – is it possible to do the same with nginx?

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by JD

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 10:56:43 -0400

I am beginning to agree with Cliff… we should be seeing mod_proxy improvements and fixes first. I am becoming very itchy for a 1.5.0 release, and unless it is delivered soon, I will have to see about using A2 or nginx. I haven’t seen the memory problems that Cliff experiences and I don’t use nested conditionals, but the “fair” proxy mode does not work well enough for large deployments.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by Cliff Wells

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 01:32:43 -0400

@kit

My complaint isn’t about Lighty supporting Rails, it’s about not supporting everything else (i.e. not leaking memory like mad as a reverse proxy, not having broken configuration parser, etc). This has nothing to do with Mongrel. The reverse proxy leaking megabytes of memory every hour may not have been critical outside the Rails world, but there’s more to the world than Rails you know ;-)

My point is simply that adding new features while critical bugs sit in Trac for months isn’t a recipe for success (well, unless you’re Microsoft… but that’s probably why they don’t use Trac ).

Also, before anyone says anything about helping out: I actually did try to get in and fix some of the bugs that were causing me issues and the state of the source code wasn’t reassuring either. I’m not exactly new to C programming (although I don’t do it much anymore) and I couldn’t wade through the mess in there.

Anyway, that aside, if anyone is still interested in Nginx, we’ve got a new wiki going over at:

http://wiki.codemongers.com/Nginx

Most (perhaps 70%) of the Russian docs have been translated (although I can’t swear to the accuracy of some of them ;-)

There’s also some deployment tips, example configurations for Mongrel, etc.

Sorry to make this more of a negative statement about Lighty rather than a positive one about Nginx, but I can’t deny I’m pretty unhappy with the whole affair. Over the last several months I’ve gone from being a Lighty evangelist to my current state of recommending people avoid it like the plague.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by kit

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:42:16 -0400

@Cliff: I’d love to hear how long ago you started this migration. Any facts, figures, or general info you might have on how nginx works in a production environment would be very helpful to the community at large.

Also, Jan is doing a great job with Lighty.

How could he have predicted Mongrel’s release and fixed all the bugs in the reverse proxy server, which was, prior to Mongrel, not a critical feature as far as most people were concerned?

Rails deployment is changing at a pace no developer could keep up with. I don’t think Jan is to blame for not being able to predict our needs.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by cliff@develix.com

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:10:43 -0400

The last year on Lighty has pretty much convinced me to find something else. If I hadn’t come upon Nginx I would have probably been forced back to Apache.

Jan’s a busy guy and I appreciate his work but he seems to have priorities a bit backward: features get added before critical bugs get fixed (reverse proxy leaks megs of memory an hour under load, nested conditionals still don’t work consistently) meanwhile we get improved Mongrel support, mod_download_status is back…

I’ve already started the migration to Nginx (about a dozen sites converted already) and it’s a breath of fresh air. Configuration is so sane you can pretty much figure it out from looking at the Russian docs, it’s fast, has the right mix of features and most importantly, the features it has appear to work properly.

I’ll probably be done migrating the rest of our servers in a week or so and I don’t expect we’ll go back to Lighty any time soon. Er, not “soon”, I meant “ever”.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by JD

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:42:54 -0400

If you haven’t already figured it out, I am a lightyholic. Rumors of other HTTP servers are mere myths. As far as nginx, I’m not too inclined to learn another program’s configuration schemes and idiosyncrasies, but to each his own. Ah well… I look forward to everyone re-embracing lighttpd when 1.5.0 is released. :)

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by kit

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:29:02 -0400

I can’t wait to see it, Alexey. Rails deployment is getting easier and easier, thankfully.

"nginx, Yet Another Rails Deployment Option" by Alexey Kovyrin

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:16:45 -0400

If you want, visit my blog in next wef days. I will post there really comprehensive rails deployment schemes information.