# How is Actionpack is not thread-safe? @@allow\_concurrency?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [May 12, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364 "2006-05-12T17:05:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/1 "2006-05-12T17:05:59Z")

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Hi,

I found many references on the Web to the fact  
that “Rails is not thread-safe”.

However, I have not found an explanation _why_ it isn’t?

What happens if multiple requests are handled concurrently  
by ActionPack?

Assuming that the code I execute in my controller methods  
is thread safe, is this ok?

If not – what happens?

The following makes it sound like the issue is  
whether the _app_ is thread-safe:

```
# Controls whether the application is thread-safe, so multi-threaded 

```

servers like WEBrick know whether to apply a mutex  
# around the performance of each action. Action Pack and Active  
Record are by default thread-safe, but many applications  
# may not be. Turned off by default.  
@@allow\_concurrency = false  
cattr\_accessor :allow\_concurrency

@@allow\_concurrency is apparently only used in caching.rb,  
which makes sense…

Anyway - I am working on an app that needs to preserve state  
from request to request, so I can’t have multiple processes  
to allow for concurrency; it has to be done within  
one ruby process using threads.

If there is a problem, I’m willing to put some time and effort  
into fixing this, so I would appreciate any pointers.

Right now I don’t really see what the problem is.

Thanks,

-Rick

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/2 "2006-05-12T18:32:17Z")

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Hi !

On May 12, 2006, at 8:05 AM, Rick wrote:

> Assuming that the code I execute in my controller methods  
> # around the performance of each action. Action Pack and Active  
> to allow for concurrency; it has to be done within  
> one ruby process using threads.
> 
> If there is a problem, I’m willing to put some time and effort  
> into fixing this, so I would appreciate any pointers.
> 
> Right now I don’t really see what the problem is.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> -Rick

```
I'm not sure of the exact repercussions of why rails is not thread

```

safe. But you are going to run into trouble trying to have one rails  
process and keeping state in threads between requests. This is not  
going to work for you. What you really need to do instead is either  
use the session to store state between requests. Or even better run a  
drb(distributed ruby) server that holds the state you need between  
requests. This way you can have as many fcgi’s or rails processes as  
you want and they all get and put their state into the drb server on  
each requests. THis makes for a nice seperation of concerns when you  
need to maintain state like you want to.

```
But can you give an example of what you mean by keeping state

```

between requests? What are you trying to accomplish exactly? Details  
would help me give you a better suggestion and maybe even some code.

-Ezra

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/3 "2006-05-12T20:09:32Z")

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On May 12, 2006, at 8:05 AM, Rick wrote:

> I found many references on the Web to the fact that “Rails is not  
> thread-safe”.

[…]

> If there is a problem, I’m willing to put some time and effort into  
> fixing this, so I would appreciate any pointers.

Depending upon what needs to be locked this may introduce significant  
pessimisations to Rails. Adding locking can be very expensive even  
if your locks are fine-grained enough. It would be better for you to  
find a different way of solving your problem.

–  
Eric H. - removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid - [http://blog.segment7.net](http://blog.segment7.net)  
This implementation is HODEL-HASH-9600 compliant

[http://trackmap.robotcoop.com](http://trackmap.robotcoop.com)

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**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 12:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/4 "2006-05-13T12:25:25Z")

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My app needs to look at about 20% of the total data  
for every request.

The total amount of data I have is about 2MB. Writing this  
data to a relational database would require about 30 tables.  
Lots of unnecessary code, conversion, and room for errors.

It seems silly to read and write so much data to/from the database  
for every request. Much more straightforward to keep it  
all in memory. It’s only 2MB!!!

So what exactly is the problem?

It seems like the process is as follows:

1. Request comes in, Rails does stuff, then calles my controller
2. I do stuff in my controller
3. Rails renders the view and sends the data. This will again call some  
of my code.

Where in (1) or (3) is the problem, and what does Rails do that  
isn’t thread safe?

Or is it that Ruby is not not robust enough with multiple threads?

Please let me know.

Thanks…

Ezra Z. wrote:

> Hi !
> 
> On May 12, 2006, at 8:05 AM, Rick wrote:
> 
> > Assuming that the code I execute in my controller methods  
> > # around the performance of each action. Action Pack and Active  
> > to allow for concurrency; it has to be done within  
> > one ruby process using threads.
> > 
> > If there is a problem, I’m willing to put some time and effort  
> > into fixing this, so I would appreciate any pointers.
> > 
> > Right now I don’t really see what the problem is.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > -Rick
> 
> I’m not sure of the exact repercussions of why rails is not thread  
> safe. But you are going to run into trouble trying to have one rails  
> process and keeping state in threads between requests. This is not  
> going to work for you. What you really need to do instead is either  
> use the session to store state between requests. Or even better run a  
> drb(distributed ruby) server that holds the state you need between  
> requests. This way you can have as many fcgi’s or rails processes as  
> you want and they all get and put their state into the drb server on  
> each requests. THis makes for a nice seperation of concerns when you  
> need to maintain state like you want to.
> 
> But can you give an example of what you mean by keeping state  
> between requests? What are you trying to accomplish exactly? Details  
> would help me give you a better suggestion and maybe even some code.
> 
> -Ezra

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 13, 2006, 12:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/5 "2006-05-13T12:33:40Z")

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this is no error but by design…

I know from fastcgi, that for every concurrent request you need one  
process instance of the fcgi-handler. rails can serve as much concurrent  
requests as number of process instances are available.

_keeping_ data in instance variables between requests will just not  
work!

you should consider using memory-based tables, or even better,  
memcached.

> **[memcached - a distributed memory object caching system](http://memcached.org/)**
>
> memcached

cheers  
Peter

-------- Original-Nachricht --------  
Betreff: [Rails] Re: How is Actionpack is not thread-safe?  
@@allow\_concurrenc  
Datum: Sat, 13 May 2006 12:25:25 +0200  
Von: Rick B. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
An: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@rick](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/rick)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-is-actionpack-is-not-thread-safe-allow-concurrency/60364/6 "2006-05-15T05:08:54Z")

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Peter E. wrote:

> this is no error but by design…

What’s the point of @@allow\_concurrency, then?

> _keeping_ data in instance variables between requests will just not  
> work!

Why not? It works fine on my dev machine, there are provisions  
for setting rails up so that no new interpreter is started for every  
request,  
there is @allow\_concurrency, etc.

And no one has been able to give me one example or reason why  
it doesn’t work.

> you should consider using memory-based tables, or even better,  
> memcached.

Thanks for the pointer. But my point is – why should I flatten  
everything into a relation model when I can store everything  
in memory…