Mongrel Web Server 0.3.12 -- Finally Out

Z

Zed Shaw

Hello Folks,

This is the long awaited (like 2 weeks) 0.3.12 release of Mongrel. This
release has received heavier testing than previous releases and supports a
whole raft of improvements to existing functionality plus some new stuff.

For those not clued in, Mongrel is a web server written in (mostly) Ruby.
Check the funny dogs and read the docs about it at
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/. The goal is to create a Ruby HTTP server to
compete with Apache Tomcat or other Java application servers. The other
goal is to have the speed of FastCGI with the ease of WEBrick.


WHAT'S NEW

The big points of this release are:

* The Mongrel::Configurator and Mongrel::Rails::Configurator for simple
configuration (mostly for framework implementers to use).
* Dynamically loadable handlers from the GemPlugins system. Next release
will let you write and add your own handlers.
* Chained handlers. That's right, you can stack a series of handlers on any
URIs and they'll be processed in order. This gives you an advanced and fast
pipe-lined processing system and is already used to implement the extensive
debugging support Mongrel has.
* Debugging, Debugging, Debugging. Try the -B option and then look in the
log/mongrel_debug logs. I'll be beefing this up to insane usefulness for
the 0.3.13 release.
* Support for sendfile on FreeBSD, Linux, and Solaris if you install the
ruby-sendfile (http://rubyforge.org/projects/ruby-sendfile) gem. This is
experimental but already gives a 20% boost on static files.
* Additional proper headers for static files from the DirHandler in order to
allow browsers to cache the content. People using Mongrel for development
or small sites will love this combined with the sendfile support.
* Lots and lots of little tweaks to improve speed and stability. Mongrel is
starting to hit a wall again with performance so I'll be looking for new
hot-spots to move to C in the near future.
* Initial support for Rails 1.1. Remember *if you use Typo it is broken not
Mongrel*. Typo is being frantically fixed so be patient.
* Fix for a bad typo on Win32 that prevented people from using additional
mime types files (stupid Emacs and it's damn capitalize command being
exactly the same as Copy in every other editor).
* Ability to specify a timeout throttling setting and a max number of
concurrent connections with additional attempts at cleaning dead threads
out. Future debugging will help people spot these.
* Lots of new Camping support and integration (thanks to Trotter Cashion for
using Mongrel with Camping like crazy).
* A handy -C option for the mongrel_rails script that lets you specify the
options you'd normally do on the command line as a YAML hash. More on this
later.

INSTALL

Everyone can go download 0.3.12 from http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=1306
like normal or do the usual "gem install mongrel" or "gem update" to get the
latest and greatest.

-- If you followed pre-release please uninstall first.


NEXT STOP...

The next steps with Mongrel will be to add the capability for users of
Mongrel to write their own Configurator scripts and to test the living
daylights out of it. If you missed my last announcement, Mongrel is getting
*commercial sponsorship* from EastMedia (http://www.eastmedia.com/) in
partnership with VeriSign (http://www.verisign.com/) for use in a
potentially large scale project. My role in this is to make sure Mongrel
can handle the required role and will not ever crash. I'll be spending the
next few weeks putting out less features and doing more stability and speed
tweaks. Stay tuned. Should be fun.


Enjoy and report those bugs!


Zed A. Shaw
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
473,913
Messages
2,570,027
Members
46,419
Latest member
businessfunding

Latest Threads

Top