Noob, installing rails on a goDaddy virtual server?

Rails
1

Hi,
I’m completely new to all of this. Not even certain this is an
appropriate forum for an installation question.

I’m just about to plunk down some money to get a virtual server. In
looking over the list of isp’s elsewhere on this site, goDaddy isn’t
mentioned - probably because they don’t offer rails as a standard
distribution. There are some aspects of the goDaddy virtual server
deals that seem much better than those at the several of the listed
rails isp’s that I looked at, so I’m still thinking of going with
goDaddy and doing the install myself.

Their virtual server boxes are running Red Hat 9.0. The owner of a
virtual server has root and admin access and can load anything he wants
onto the box.

It seems like this should install and run pretty easily, but I haven’t
found any Rails documentation that talks about Red Hat. I also don’t
know what specifically to ask goDaddy support in order to find out if it
will run. I took a shot and just asked straight up if Rails could be
installed on their virtual server configuration and I got the expected
“deer in the headlights” response. Basically they never heard of it.

So, anybody out there already using Rails on a goDaddy virtual server?
If not, can one of the installation experts tell me the right questions
to ask at goDaddy to determine whether or not it will work? Anybody
know if Red Hat 9.0 will already have Ruby and/or Gems with a usable
version pre-installed?

thanks,
jp

2

On Jan 9, 2006, at 8:29 AM, Jeff P. wrote:

goDaddy and doing the install myself.
will run. I took a shot and just asked straight up if Rails could be
thanks,
jp

Jeff-

Please do yourself a favor and don't ever use GoDaddy. they have the

worst support ever. They are basically a big hosting factory and
they don’t care about you at all after you have purchased a server
from them. Do what you want but I can’t recommend enough to stay away
from godaddy!

If you post some specs as to what you need i can help you find a

better VPS provider. I have had great luck with http://
rimuhosting.com and I host a bunch of rails sites there on a VPS.
They will install your VPS with rails already set up if you request
it. Also I have written a detailed setup tutorial for getting a great
lightweight debian/lighttpd server up and running on rimu. You can
see it here:

http://brainspl.at/rails_stack.html

Good luck with whatever you choose but please stay away from godaddy

if you want a quality host.

Cheers-

-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
[email protected]

3

Thanks Ezra,
I’m starting to think the slimiest people in the world have all migrated
from selling street drugs and being career politicians to now being ISP
owners. I had a really bad experience with a host not in the U.S. and
swore that I would never try a “foreign” isp again. Wound up canceling
the credit card to get them to stop charging me. It’s not that I think
U.S. isp’s are any more honest, it’s just that if I have to I can drive
over there and wring their necks personally. When they are on the other
side of the planet that is considerably more difficult.

Other than being located on the opposite side of the planet, I like the
looks of rimu. The fact that they don’t require any kind of a contract
makes the downside risk fairly low as long as I keep a local copy of
what’s on my server and use a credit card I don’t mind canceling. I
think I will still use GoDaddy for domain registration. I like the
control I get by having the registration and hosting at two different
companies. I can easily yank my domains out from under a slimy isp if
necessary.

I may try rimu. I will mention your name if I do. Are there any
similar ones in the U.S. that you have had good results with?

thanks,
jp

Ezra Z. wrote:

On Jan 9, 2006, at 8:29 AM, Jeff P. wrote:

goDaddy and doing the install myself.
will run. I took a shot and just asked straight up if Rails could be
thanks,
jp

Jeff-

Please do yourself a favor and don’t ever use GoDaddy. they have the
worst support ever. They are basically a big hosting factory and
they don’t care about you at all after you have purchased a server
from them. Do what you want but I can’t recommend enough to stay away
from godaddy!

If you post some specs as to what you need i can help you find a
better VPS provider. I have had great luck with http://
rimuhosting.com and I host a bunch of rails sites there on a VPS.
They will install your VPS with rails already set up if you request
it. Also I have written a detailed setup tutorial for getting a great
lightweight debian/lighttpd server up and running on rimu. You can
see it here:

Ruby on Rails Blog / What is Ruby on Rails for?

Good luck with whatever you choose but please stay away from godaddy
if you want a quality host.

Cheers-

-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
[email protected]

4

Ezra hooked me up with the Rimu guys and I have been very pleased.

Steve
http://www.smarkets.net

5

Steve O. wrote:

Ezra hooked me up with the Rimu guys and I have been very pleased.

Steve
http://www.smarkets.net

Hi Ezra or Steve,
can you folks please post the average spec of the VPS server
(especially Ram) which you have been using?

Also, I’m wondering if you are using 1 Vps per rails site or can host
more than one?

I’ve been thinking seriously about RIMU (primarily based on Ezra’s
excellent setup doc and recommendation) but I’m wondering if a lower
order VPS (read < 50/mo) would cut it for a couple Rails app ?

Thanks for any comments which you may have on this,

-Amr

6

Jeff-

Yeah godaddy is fine for just plain domain name registration I

wasn’t complaining about that. Its just there hosting services that
suck.

Rimu headquarters is in New Zealand but their data center is in

Texas in a huge NOC and all their tech support folks are in the USA
as well. I have 3 servers with them for 8 or 9 months and I haven’t
had any issues and they have answered all my tickets within half an
hour or so. There are about 12 or so people that i referred there and
there are no complaints from any of them yet and they are all railers.

Anyway, another good one is http://www.unixshell.com/ . They have

Xen based VPS servers as well. Wherever you decide to go, try to get
yourself a vps provider that uses Xen for the virtualization
software. Virtuozzo and user mode linux pale in comparison
performance wise. Xen based virtual servers are the fastest ones
around because they are implemented in the linux kernel.

Good Luck-

-Ezra

On Jan 9, 2006, at 6:27 PM, Jeff P. wrote:

U.S. isp’s are any more honest, it’s just that if I have to I can
what’s on my server and use a credit card I don’t mind canceling. I

rimuhosting.com and I host a bunch of rails sites there on a VPS.
Cheers-

Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
[email protected]

7

Ezra Z. wrote:

Also if you are getting up into a higher price range, you might want
to consider a cheap dedicated box. I have a new server with
layeredtech that rocks and they have good deals as well. Plus they
have a very good reputation on forums like webhostingtalk. You can
get a server with the following config for $65/month!
AMD Sempron 2600

80GB IDE Hard Drive
512MB DDR RAM
Bandwidth: 1000GB
IP Addresses: 8 (5 usable)
Private VLAN
Basic Resource Monitoring
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, Windows*
100% Self Managed and Dedicated
Monthly Fee Options:
$65 | $19 Setup

Thanks for your response, Ezra, exactly what I was looking for! I think
I’ll go with the cheap dedicated box because I am thinking of running my
dev/test/prod on the remote box with a couple apps running concurrently.
Rimu looks pretty tempting ,but it starts to reach the same price point
when I start looking for more memory.

Can’t thank you enough for your article on the perfect rails setup. It
is a gem indeed! I’m sure the book will be chock full of more such
goodies… :slight_smile:

This info is very helpful from a deployment perspective, much
appreciated!

regards,

-Amr

8

On Jan 10, 2006, at 2:10 PM, Amr M. wrote:

Also, I’m wondering if you are using 1 Vps per rails site or can

Amr-

I have one vps there that is the $29/month deal with only 128mb ram.

I have my typo blog, a rails paste server and an install of Family
Connection(another rails app). My blog gets medium traffic and the
family and paste server are relativly low traffic. But it handles
these three being used at the same time. But I wouldn’t want to run
more then one app on this vps if it got a decent amount of traffic.

I also have set up and maintain a $49/month cps with 192mb ram. That

one is a much nicer option for a high traffic site. i think you will
find that the cpu and disk io performance is very close to dedicated
speeds thanks to Xen and that the memory is your only real limiting
factor. So run your apps locally in production mode and see how much
memory they tend to use, that will help you decide how much ram you
need.

Also if you are getting up into a higher price range, you might want

to consider a cheap dedicated box. I have a new server with
layeredtech that rocks and they have good deals as well. Plus they
have a very good reputation on forums like webhostingtalk. You can
get a server with the following config for $65/month!
AMD Sempron 2600

80GB IDE Hard Drive
512MB DDR RAM
Bandwidth: 1000GB
IP Addresses: 8 (5 usable)
Private VLAN
Basic Resource Monitoring
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, Windows*
100% Self Managed and Dedicated
Monthly Fee Options:
$65 | $19 Setup

I don't have an affiliation with any of these hosts. Although I love

it when people mention my name when they sign up with rimu :wink: You
need to take a step back and decide what’s best for you. If you can
afford the dedicated box and you will be building more apps in the
future then you will get a lot of use out of it. But if you just want
your own place to host one or two apps without other people on the
server stepping all over your toes, then a vps is great. And you can
use the same tutorial I wrote to set up a debian box on any host with
root access, it doesn’t have to be rimu.

Good Luck-
-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster
http://yakimaherald.com
509-577-7732
[email protected]

9

I’m using rimu and I set up my server using one of Ezra’s tutorials at (
Ruby on Rails Blog / What is Ruby on Rails for?).

I’m very pleased with the support so far. If you have any trouble they
are
willing and able to help.

And a xen based host is much nicer than a shared hosting plan like you
see
at textdrive, as an
example.

-Kelly

10

I’ve been using dreamhosts.com which is a shared server. It is a good
deal if you are just trying to lean how things work.

20GB disk
1000GB bandwidth
Rails/ruby already installed on server

The slick part is the coupon 777, use that when you sign up.
Sign up for 12 months at $9.95 for a total of $119.40.
Use the coupon and the total will drop to $9.24 for the year.
That works out to $0.77 a month, can’t beat that for a host to play
with.

It’s cheap because they pay $100 commissions on accounts, the coupon
effectively let’s you keep your own commission. They limit the number
of accounts that can use 777 each day so you may need to try for
several days.

Your bandwidth and disk space is initially unlimited with charges for
overages. Go into the control panel and setup account limits so that
your account gets disabled on an overage instead of being billed for
the excess.

I have a Rails app working with Switchtower deployment, it wasn’t
painless but I got everything working after a couple of days. There
are 125 other accounts on my server. I checked them out and none are
doing any serious work. Most haven’t even set up their first web page.
Box is quad Xenon with 3GB RAM.

–
Jon S.
[email protected]