# How to have a Rails app inside a Rails app? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [October 12, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933 "2006-10-12T13:50:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 1:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/1 "2006-10-12T13:50:28Z")
So I’m trying to figure out the best way to do this. I have my main rails app ready, but say I wanted to keep it separate from a front-end using the Mephisto rails app, whats the easiest way to do this? This way I can easily upgrade Mephisto when upgrades come out without having to merge all my code, controllers, modules in it etc. The mephisto setup will be used for around 5-10 pages and I can then have the page/post management of Mephisto built right in. This will be at say [www.mydomain.com](http://www.mydomain.com). Then I want to have my app which is password protected and only for authenitcated users in something like [www.domain.com/myapp](http://www.domain.com/myapp) which has its own layouts, controllers modules, database etc. In PHP this is as simple as nesting directories or separate apps, but in rails is quite different, especially taking into account deployment methods such as Capistrano and such. Do I keep the apps separate and put a symlink to myapp’s public dir in the mephisto public dir? Will I have to do some fancy Rewrite rules? Would this even be possible on a virtual host or VPS or will I actually have to merge all my code in to Mephisto? If not I suppose I could use a PHP based front-end like wordpress and then have a link there to my rails app. Right now I’d like to deploy on a Ubuntu VPS via Nginx and Mongrel Cluster but can also easily do Apache, mod\_proxy\_balancer, Mongrel. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/2 "2006-10-12T14:41:43Z")
The easiest way is actually to use subdomains. Put your main app at [www.yoursite.com](http://www.yoursite.com). Put your other apps at [somethingelse.yourdomain.com](http://somethingelse.yourdomain.com). I wouldn’t get too hung up on nesting directories since you’re going to provide links for your users to click for navigation. Another option is to just structure your application in such a way that your stuff is separate from their stuff. Rails is pretty well structured… you should be able to do it with relative ease. You can also use some other more advanced methods like symlinks and rewrite rules. It’s going to depend largely on what your host will provide. If the subdomains won’t work for you, let me know. ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/3 "2006-10-12T15:18:01Z")
Hey Brian, Yeah, I was kinda thinking along the same lines, especially since the links will be taken care of by a consistent navigations in both templates subdomains would work. I think I’ll give this a try first and if that doesn’t work perhaps look into symlinks and rewrite rules though that could get ugly :-\ ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 3:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/4 "2006-10-13T03:14:57Z")
One thing about subdomains and just generally having a seperate Rails app file tree is how to do the database portion. In my case I am thinking about integrating the Beast (beast.caboo.se) message forum into my site as a separate subdomain. If I share the same database I might prepend the table names with forum\_ or beast\_ so I don’t confuse myself. One thing to consider when using the same database like that is migrations. I’d most likely need to manually move the Beast migrations over to my main app’s db/migrate directory and in the proper order. Otherwise the migration version number will conflict between the two apps. Another option is to use a separate database. Since I want to access some of the forum data in my main app, I’ll need to specify the different database for the forum data models there, but I think that is pretty straightforward. I think I’ll wind up going with the separate database. That way the forum code is totally standalone, including db migrations. ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/5 "2006-10-18T10:39:16Z")
On 10/12/06, Marston [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hey Brian, > > Yeah, I was kinda thinking along the same lines, especially since the > links will be taken care of by a consistent navigations in both > templates subdomains would work. > > I think I’ll give this a try first and if that doesn’t work perhaps > look into symlinks and rewrite rules though that could get ugly :-\ If you’re using mongrel and http proxying, you could use mod\_rewrite to proxy the different directories to different packs of mongrels. -ryan ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:40am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/6 "2006-10-18T10:40:51Z")
Carl, Yes, I agree. I think I’ll do the same. ---
**Author:** ![Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@Marston](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Marston)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2006, 10:39am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-have-a-rails-app-inside-a-rails-app/71933/7 "2006-10-18T10:39:25Z")
Well if I have app1/ and app2/controllerx and I want controllerx to ‘appear’ on app1 I create a controllerx on app1 in index() of controllerx, I have this: request.request\_uri.to\_s I feed that to something that connects to app2 for me. example: Net::HTTP.get\_response “host2”, request.request\_uri.to\_s I then have access to a stream of HTML I need to deal with. I usually dont do anything with it; I stuff it in a variable and then render that variable: @disp\_this = (Net::HTTP.get\_response “host2”, request.request\_uri.to\_s ).body and… \<%= @disp\_this %\> demo: [http://vietenglish.com/student/numbers](http://vietenglish.com/student/numbers) [http://vietenglish.com/td?db=ev&fmt=u&word=dictionary](http://vietenglish.com/td?db=ev&fmt=u&word=dictionary) It appears that student and td are controllers in the same RAILS\_ROOT But they are not. td is actually served up by a Java based app server. -Dan On 10/12/06, Ryan K. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > look into symlinks and rewrite rules though that could get ugly :-\ > > If you’re using mongrel and http proxying, you could use mod\_rewrite > to proxy the different directories to different packs of mongrels. > > -ryan > > > – removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > **[Bikle.com may be for sale - PerfectDomain.com](https://perfectdomain.com/domain/bikle.com)** > > Checkout the full domain details of Bikle.com. Click Buy Now to instantly start the transaction or Make an offer to the seller!