Apache + Mongrel + PHP

Shimon_A · October 18, 2006, 3:42pm

I’ve got an Apache + PHP website and I’d like it to work side by side
with
Rails using Mongrel. How do I configure httpd.conf (without using a
cluster) to forward rails requests to Mongrel and let the php ones
continue
working as is? Is this possible?

Here’s the basic setup:

File system:
apache/htdocs - contains all the php scripts
railsproj/public - public rails project folder

HTTP settings:
http://www.example.com/ → apache/htdocs
http://www.example.com:4000 → railsproj/public

Thanks,
Shimon A.

Shimon_A · October 18, 2006, 4:38pm

We do something a little like that. There may be other ways, but we’ve
used virtual hosts, ie

<VirtualHost *:80>
#stuff for your rails site

<VirtualHost *:4000>
#stuff for your php site.

Fred

Shimon_A · October 18, 2006, 5:02pm

But doesn’t that mean that the end user has to enter the port number (
www.example.com:4000) in his browser? How can I configure it so that
www.example.com/[anything/].php goes to the php parser and everything
else
goes to mongrel/rails?

Shimon_A · October 18, 2006, 6:01pm

Hmm, try setting up a proxy? In Apache, look at
mod_proxy - Apache HTTP Server, especially at the
proxypass directive.

Shimon A. wrote:

Fred

--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

–
Lance I.
Web Applications Developer
RBS Interactive
[email protected]

Shimon_A · October 18, 2006, 6:05pm

I’ve got an Apache + PHP website and I’d like it to work side by side with
Rails using Mongrel. How do I configure httpd.conf (without using a
cluster) to forward rails requests to Mongrel and let the php ones continue
working as is? Is this possible?

Yes…

http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/msg/99b36051504f783f

Shimon_A · October 19, 2006, 4:12pm

Shameless plug: Take a look at LiteSpeed. It allows you to do all
this and more. It’s fast, free, and you don’t need mongrel och
mongrel_cluster. Rails processes can spawn - quickly - just like PHP
processes, and the two can coinhabit the same server.

/ Peter

Shimon_A · October 19, 2006, 4:41pm

I had looked at LiteSpeed for a production app, and the commercial
version looks freaking fast. The free version looks about the same,
performance-wise, as lighttpd. Lighttpd also can serve both rails and
php through fcgi. Does litespeed have any advantages over lighttpd?

Shimon_A · October 19, 2006, 3:50pm

Thanks everybody. My goal was to setup a Ruby on Rails development
environment on Windows XP allowing PHP and Rails to run side by side
without
clustering or proxying. Here’s my summary as to how I succeeded to setup
the
following development environment:

Windows XP
Xampp: Apache 2.0, PHP 5, MySQL 5
Ruby 1.8.5
Rails 1.1.6
Mongrel (gems: mongrel, mongrel_service)

Here’s how:

INSTALLATIONS

First I installed XAMPP 1.5.0-pl1. I didn’t use the most recent
version
because of MySQL/Ruby compatibility Issues.
Download xampp-win32-1.5.0-pl1-installer.exe (XAMPP)
Ruby 1.8.5 - One click installer
Download Ruby
Rails: At the command line: gem install rails
–include-dependencies.
I used to have Ruby 1.8.2 installed and with the version of RubyGems
that it
came with the gem commands used to freeze. I know things still aren’t
too
stable with Ruby on Windows, but after I upgraded to 1.8.5 the gem
command
started working nicely.
Mongrel: gem install mongrel_service --include-dependencies. This
will
also install the mongrel gem. This gem will allow mongrel to run on
Windows
as a service.

CONFIGURATIONS

Apache. Append the following to the httpd.conf file. Notice that I
used
mod_rewrite rather than mod_proxy to forward requests to mongrel. (If
this
is a no no, I have yet to find out!) I didn’t want to have to configure
a
mongrel cluster.

ServerName 127.0.0.1
DocumentRoot C:/path/to/rails/project

<Directory "C:/path/to/rails/project">
  Options FollowSymLinks
  AllowOverride None
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
</Directory>

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^(.+[^/])$ $1/ [R]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} \.php
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.html -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1/index.html [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}/index.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1/index.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^(.*)[^/]$ $1/ [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:4000%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]

Mongrel. This is a one-time command to run at the command prompt to
install a mongrel service that will serve your rails application:
mongrel_rails service::install -N [name_of_service]
-c [c:\path\to\rails\project] -p 4000 -e [development]
[name_of_service] - name of the Mongrel Windows service that will serve
the
rails project.
[c:\path\to\rails\project] - as it says.
[development] - this can be either ‘development’ or ‘production’. As
you
can guess, running on Windows with XAMPP, I was running a development
environment.
Rails. Configure your development database in
[c:\path\to\rails\project]\config\database.yml.

INITIATIONS

Command line: mongrel_rails service::start -N [name_of_service]
Start Apache+MySQL with XAMPP Control Panel.
Go to 127.0.0.1 in your browser.

RESOURCES

Local Development Environment
http://www.ridaalbarazi.com/blog/2006/06/21/local-development-environment-part-3/

Faster Is Possible (Official mongrel documentation -
mongrel.rubyforge.org)
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/docs/apache.html

Ruby On Rails L. (Thanks Phillip)
http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk/msg/99b36051504f783f

Let me know if I’ve left anything out. I hope this thread will help
newcomers overcome the difficulties of setting up Rails on Windows for
the
first time!

Best,
Shimon A.

Shimon_A · October 19, 2006, 5:50pm

Yes. You don’t need to allocate a bunch of static FCGI workers. They
are spawned as needed, and you can control the maximum allowed number
of them. Also, configuring a Rails site is a doddle. As is multiple
Rails apps on one server. And it’s configurable through a web interface.

Shimon_A · October 20, 2006, 7:12am

On 10/19/06, Shimon A. [email protected] wrote:

Thanks everybody. My goal was to setup a Ruby on Rails development
environment on Windows XP allowing PHP and Rails to run side by side without
clustering or proxying.

No, no, no… proxying is how you are supposed to use Apache with
Mongrel. If you don’t want use proxying then just browse directly to
the port # on which you are having Mongrel serve up your Rails app.

Curt

Shimon_A · October 19, 2006, 4:53pm

LiteSpeed definately looks like it has prospects, but it doesn’t run on
Windows. I may try it with MS Virtual PC but I’m not quite there yet.

Shimon_A · October 21, 2006, 6:06pm

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On Oct 20, 2006, at 6:35 AM, Shimon A. wrote:

expressions. Do you have any suggestions? Plus, why is it
preferable to use mod_proxy rather than mod_rewrite with Mongrel?

As I understand it, it’s the API required… fcgi expects the web
server to use that protocol which is handled by a web server module,
and the rewrite is what triggers it.

OTOH, mongrel is a HTTP server; it expects the proxied http
request. Why don’t you want proxying? It’s already available with
apache… and it works well. We have php and rails w/ mongrel
working in InstantRails…

David M.
Maia Mailguard http://www.maiamailguard.com
[email protected]

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Shimon_A · October 22, 2006, 8:33am

I tried InstantRails but they don’t offer MySQL 5 which is a
requirement.
Regarding proxies, I have no objection to using them so long as I can
use
regular expressions (see post above) to filter requests. So far I’ve
only
had success with mod_rewrite and not with mod_proxy.

Shimon_A · October 20, 2006, 1:51pm

I don’t want to have to enter the port number. It is not elegant.
Plus, I
don’t want to make provisions for that type of URL pattern in the links
(PHP
links). The last line of the VirtualHost section above says:

RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ http://127.0.0.1:4000%{REQUEST_URI} [P,QSA,L]

This is the line that rewrites all the rails requests to mongrel.
Problem
is, I can’t use ProxyPass rather than RewriteRule because it does not
accept
regular expressions. Do you have any suggestions? Plus, why is it
preferable to use mod_proxy rather than mod_rewrite with Mongrel?

Thanks,
Shimon