need Rails advice

[Chris Newman]

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I have inherited an existing intranet web server that runs Apache 1.3 on
Solaris 8. It is a bit limited so I am putting together a development web
server to test various Apache modules, Content Management Systems, etc. The
new server will run Apache 2.0 on Solaris 8. I was interested in trying Ruby
and perhaps even Ruby on Rails and I have a couple of questions...

Should I use mod_ruby or fastcgi?
Will there be a significant performance difference depending on which I
choose?
Will Rails work with both?

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Chris

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[Shalev NessAiver]

While I'm still pretty new to the whole deal, here's what I have:

Rails will run with mod_ruby or fastcgi.
The best performance seems to be with Apache lighthttpd and FastCGI.

That setup also seems to be the one most preferred (for good reason).

-Shalev

 

[pat eyler]

This is probably better asked over on the Rails mailing list, but here goes:

I have inherited an existing intranet web server that runs Apache 1.3 on
Solaris 8. It is a bit limited so I am putting together a development web
server to test various Apache modules, Content Management Systems, etc. The
new server will run Apache 2.0 on Solaris 8. I was interested in trying Ruby
and perhaps even Ruby on Rails and I have a couple of questions...

Should I use mod_ruby or fastcgi?
fastcgi

Will there be a significant performance difference depending on which I
choose?
Will Rails work with both?

Rails runs with both, but there are problems with mod_ruby that have
caused the apache using segments of the Rails community to settle on
fastcgi

 

[Dick Davies]

I have inherited an existing intranet web server that runs Apache 1.3 on
Solaris 8. It is a bit limited so I am putting together a development web
server to test various Apache modules, Content Management Systems, etc. The
new server will run Apache 2.0 on Solaris 8. I was interested in trying Ruby
and perhaps even Ruby on Rails and I have a couple of questions...

Should I use mod_ruby or fastcgi?

fastcgi. can't think of any compelling reason to use mod_ruby for rails
(it has some nice features by virtue of being in-process, but nothing that
rails uses).

Will there be a significant performance difference depending on which I
choose?

yes, fastcgi is fast. See, it's right there in the name

Will Rails work with both?

Yes. and webrick too, if you want to avoid tweaking anything else.

Thanks in advance for any advice,

Have a look at the rails list when you get a minute, especially if you
need more detail.

 

[Tobias Luetke]

Mod_ruby, while supported, is not much of an option.

There are the fundamental problems with its architecture like
in-process ruby interpreter which for a rails application means you
will run around with 20mb baggage per apache worker process. Apache
loves to start a lot of worker processes so you have to take this into
account when buying ram.

However thats only the small reason against it, the big is that you
can only run one rails application on your apache installation since
the ruby processes are shared.

Fastcgi solves all this, it creates a pool of rails applications which
handle the requests coming to it and you can dictate the maximum size.
Fastcgi is also a whole lot faster.

I recommend lighttpd as web server.