# Deploying rails as a sub-url **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 6, 2007, 5:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274 "2007-04-06T05:56:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 5:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/1 "2007-04-06T05:56:20Z")
Hello, I want to deploy a rails app as a sub-url to an existing site. So, I’m using ProxyPass in apache to proxy urls for /foo to localhost on port 10000, where mongrel is listening. Unfortunately, the helper functions in Rails like link\_to seem to insist on providing absolute urls (ie. /admin). That will break with this scheme, since the /foo in the URL won’t be maintained. What is recommended for a deployment like this? Thanks, Mike ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 6:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/2 "2007-04-06T06:42:23Z")
msoulier wrote: > providing absolute urls (ie. /admin). That will break with this > scheme, since > the /foo in the URL won’t be maintained. > > What is recommended for a deployment like this? > > Thanks, > Mike You can use --prefix with Mongrel to specify the subdirectory you want to run Rails under. E.g.: mongrel\_rails start -d -p 10000 -a 127.0.0.1 -e production –prefix /foo – Michael W. ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 7:18am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/3 "2007-04-06T07:18:25Z")
On Apr 6, 12:40 am, Michael W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > You can use --prefix with Mongrel to specify the subdirectory you want > to run Rails under. E.g.: > > mongrel\_rails start -d -p 10000 > -a 127.0.0.1 > -e production > –prefix /foo Cool, that works! I had a partially working solution by updating routing with the prefix, but that broke access to the public directory. Thanks! Mike ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/4 "2007-04-06T14:20:21Z")
Mike, any chance you could post the relevant code from your httpd.conf file? I’ve been stumbling around, trying to figure this out, for a while now, and I’ve yet to get multiple sites working on one box, without having work done on DNS tables (which is not a possibility in this case). With a lot of help, I eventually got RoR working for a single site ([OSX apache2 final-stage setup hints? - Rails - Ruby-Forum](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/100239#216736)) using ProxyPass. However, this ProxyPass method seems to be the wrong approach for multiple sites on one box ([Multiple virtual host? - Rails - Ruby-Forum](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/103505#229200)) since it demands the changing of DNS tables, which I lack permission to do. [Commercial hosting is not a solution for me.] Dan. ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 2:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/5 "2007-04-06T14:41:13Z")
Dan K. wrote: > However, this ProxyPass method seems to be the wrong approach for > multiple sites on one box > ([Multiple virtual host? - Rails - Ruby-Forum](http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/103505#229200)) since it demands the > changing of DNS tables, which I lack permission to do. [Commercial > hosting is not a solution for me.] What’s the problem? In httpd.conf you just need something like this: ProxyPass /site1 [http://localhost:9000/site1](http://localhost:9000/site1) ProxyPassReverse /site1 [http://locahost:9000/site1](http://locahost:9000/site1) ProxyPass /site2 [http://localhost:9001/site2](http://localhost:9001/site2) ProxyPassReverse /site2 [http://locahost:9001/site2](http://locahost:9001/site2) And to launch each Mongrel you need something like (run from inside each app directory): mongrel\_rails start -d -p 9000 -a 127.0.0.1 -e production –prefix /site1 \ mongrel\_rails start -d -p 9001 -a 127.0.0.1 -e production –prefix /site2 \ – Michael W. ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/6 "2007-04-10T13:48:19Z")
The problem is that the images don’t show up, if I do as above. ---
**Author:** ![msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/97f17d/32.png) [@msoulier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/msoulier)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2007, 5:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/deploying-rails-as-a-sub-url/91274/7 "2007-04-06T17:01:34Z")
On Apr 6, 8:20 am, Dan K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Mike, any chance you could post the relevant code from your httpd.conf > file? It’s just ProxyPass /foobar [http://127.0.0.1:10000/foobar](http://127.0.0.1:10000/foobar) ProxyPassReverse /foobar [http://127.0.0.1:10000/foobar](http://127.0.0.1:10000/foobar) Unfortunately it’s not enough, since proxypass only fixes http headers and not page contents. The link\_to function and it’s brothers all seem to want to use absolute urls instead of relative ones, a terrible practice. I tried turning off that behaviour in the default html options but it didn’t seem to help. In the end I used the mongrel option suggested and it’s working great. Still, I find it sad that Rails suffers from the same broken assumptions about deployment as jakarta-tomcat. > changing of DNS tables, which I lack permission to do. [Commercial > hosting is not a solution for me.] It now works for me with a combination of proxypass, and mongrel’s – prefix option. Should work for you. Mike