# Apache + Mongrel + Static files **URL:** \ **Category:** Deployment\ **Created:** [December 18, 2007, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545 "2007-12-18T16:37:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/1 "2007-12-18T16:37:56Z")
Hi! I deployed my first rails application on my own server (I’m using Apache 2.2.6 + Mongrel). It’s working perfectly and I’m very happy. The only one problem is that it is very slow to render the layout at the first time. I think that the problem comes from static files like images and css because the text is rendered directly but images appears one by one and very slowly. So I configured my Apache virtual host like this : \ BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8000](http://127.0.0.1:8000) BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8001](http://127.0.0.1:8001) BalancerMember [http://127.0.0.1:8002](http://127.0.0.1:8002) \ ServerName [myapp.com](http://myapp.com) ErrorLog logs/myapp\_errors\_log CustomLog logs/myapp\_log combined DocumentRoot /path\_to\_app/public \ Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order allow,deny Allow from all RewriteEngine On # Rewrite index to check for static RewriteRule ^/$ /index.html [QSA] # Rewrite to check for Rails cached page RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [QSA] # Redirect all non-static requests to cluster RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT\_ROOT}/%{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f RewriteRule ^/(.\*)$ balancer://myapp\_cluster%{REQUEST\_URI} [P,QSA,L] # Deflate AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/css text/xml application/xml application/xhtml+xml text/javascript BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4.0[678] no-gzip BrowserMatch bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html ProxyPass /images ! ProxyPass /stylesheets ! ProxyPass /javascripts ! Alias /images /path\_to\_app/public/images Alias /stylesheets /path\_to\_app/public/stylesheets Alias /javascripts /path\_to\_app/public/javascripts And I restarted httpd but it doesn’t seem to change anything. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks in advance for your help! ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 6:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/2 "2007-12-18T18:30:03Z")
Best way to debug behaviour is to turn on rewrite logging. You’ll see what rewrite rule is activated. RewriteLog [your\_path\_here]/http\_rewrite\_log RewriteLogLevel 9 ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2007, 10:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/3 "2007-12-18T22:20:51Z")
Thanks for you reply. I get this in my log file for each images, css and js files : [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (2) init rewrite engine with requested uri /images/logo.png [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (3) applying pattern ‘^/$’ to uri ‘/images/logo.png’ [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (3) applying pattern ‘^([^.]+)$’ to uri ‘/images/logo.png’ [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (3) applying pattern ‘^/(.\*)$’ to uri ‘/images/logo.png’ [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (4) RewriteCond: input=’/var/www/rails/myapp/public//images/logo.png’ pattern=’!-f’ =\> not-matched [18/Dec/2007:22:03:51 +0100] [myapp/sid#800f6270][rid#80258cc0/initial] (1) pass through /images/logo.png I presume that the problem come from the // in (4) RewriteCond: input=’/var/www/rails/myapp/public//images/logo.png’but I don’t understand why it appears. Do you have any idea? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 1:30pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/4 "2007-12-19T13:30:17Z")
Thanks, I don’t have the duplicated / anymore but I still have the same message in the log file : 1. RewriteCond: input=’/var/www/rails/myapp/public/images/logo.png’ pattern=’!-f’ =\> not-matched ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 10:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/5 "2007-12-20T10:43:22Z")
It could be a permissions issue. Can the user that apache is running as read the file? ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2007, 12:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/6 "2007-12-19T12:43:41Z")
This is the one being executed. Your request file name has a leading ‘/’ Try removing the duplicate / from below RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT\_ROOT}/%{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f becomes RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT\_ROOT}%{REQUEST\_FILENAME} !-f It may have more success ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2007, 4:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/7 "2007-12-21T16:38:46Z")
Well, I disabled iptables on my server and now images are displayed very fastly (but it doesn’t explain messages in my log file). The problem now is why iptables slows down images like this? I need a protection for my server. ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2007, 1:55pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/8 "2007-12-20T13:55:18Z")
Yes, these files are owned by mongrel user but all users are allowed to read them : $ ls -al /var/www/rails/myapp/public/images/ -r-xr-xr-x 1 mongrel mongrel 2881 Nov 10 16:00 bg.png -r-xr-xr-x 1 mongrel mongrel 5582 Nov 10 16:01 footer.png … $ ls -al /var/www drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 16 22:03 rails $ ls -al /var/www/rails dr-xr-xr-x 16 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 17 23:28 myapp $ ls -al /var/ww/rails/myapp dr-x------ 7 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 app dr-x------ 3 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 components dr-x------ 5 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 16 22:29 config drwx------ 4 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 db dr-x------ 3 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 doc dr-x------ 4 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 lib -r-x------ 1 mongrel mongrel 478 Dec 9 12:10 .loadpath drwx------ 3 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 16 22:47 log -r-x------ 1 mongrel mongrel 433 Dec 9 12:10 .project dr-xr-xr-x 6 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 17 23:28 public -r-x------ 1 mongrel mongrel 307 Oct 13 18:11 Rakefile dr-x------ 5 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 script dr-x------ 8 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 test drwx------ 7 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 13 23:58 tmp dr-x------ 5 mongrel mongrel 4096 Dec 16 21:46 vendor Thanks for your help. ---
**Author:** ![2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/2/4bbf92/32.png) [@2dc](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/2dc)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2008, 12:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/apache-mongrel-static-files/123545/9 "2008-01-13T12:42:55Z")
Anthony 2dc wrote: > Well, I disabled iptables on my server and now images are displayed very > fastly (but it doesn’t explain messages in my log file). > > The problem now is why iptables slows down images like this? I need a > protection for my server. Are you sure you didn’t change something else as well? Iptables is fast. Might be more useful to browse you site with Firefox with the Firebug extension installed. On the Firebug interface there is a “Net” tab, you can see the response headers for each file your browser requested, more specifically you can see which server (apache or mongrel) is serving those files.