# How ruby can solve this:network programming

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-ruby-can-solve-this-network-programming/171166>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 27, 2009, 1:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-ruby-can-solve-this-network-programming/171166 "2009-06-27T13:01:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BENI)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2009, 1:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-ruby-can-solve-this-network-programming/171166/1 "2009-06-27T13:01:04Z")

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I am not sure whether this is ruby question or networking question…  
but this group is so resourceful that I came over for some help onto  
it.

We have developed a ROR application that pulls data from a Network  
element and generates Hourly dashboard for the element.

There are 25 such elements spread ac the country.

Apache/Mongrel combination is used in each of these dashboard  
generating machines.

Upto this it is fine…

Now… the requirement is users who are suppose to access the  
application should be capable of reaching any of these machines for  
visibility of DASHBOARD.

Problem is… the application server resides in a domain … whereas  
users need to access it from the same domain or another domain which  
the firewall policy of the org does not permit.

We have at our disposal one server (WINDOWS IIS) which can talk to  
both of these domains.

What we need is … some kind of code sitting on this server that can  
proxy/forward etc to the corresponding dashboard generating ROR  
application.

I hope i have been able to state the problem clearly.

Any help/pointer/tutrial on how to acheive this would be great.

Cheers

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**Author:** ![BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BENI)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 9:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-ruby-can-solve-this-network-programming/171166/2 "2009-06-28T09:40:51Z")

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On Jun 27, 3:59 pm, BENI [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> generating machines.
> 
> Cheers

can any one pl share some ideas

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**Author:** ![BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@BENI](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/BENI)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2009, 11:42am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-ruby-can-solve-this-network-programming/171166/3 "2009-06-28T11:42:33Z")

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Firstly this seems like a political rather than technical problem. Get  
the firewall changes made and you need to do nothing else.

After that Option a) is to change the Rails application so that the  
dashboard functionality is presented as a web service. I would imagine  
Rails can be used to do that - it seems quite a comprehensive framework  
from what I’ve seen of it. You can then call that service from a  
Rails(?) app on your IIS server.

Option b) is to use the IIS server to script the Rails apps. You can use  
raw HTML or a browser (eg Watir).