I am trying to host several RoR applications on my desktop machine. I
am in an academic environment in which I have root access on the
machine (e.g. I can install software, edit httpd.conf files, etc), but
I am not able to alter the DNS of the box, nor its IP.
In my httpd.conf, I have UserDir set up, so that with HTML/PHP/…
it’s easy to get multiple applications with URLs like
$(HOST)/~$(USER)/app1
$(HOST)/~$(USER)/app2
$(HOST)/~$(USER)/app3
although sometimes I present a simpler URL to my students by using an
Alias in my httpd.conf.
The point is that in my old (non-RoR) way of working, I can host
several applications without altering DNS tables or acquiring
additional IP numbers, neither of which I am permitted to do on the
network hosting my machine. (I may as well shamefacedly admit that
I’m an academic, with no funds to host my applications
commercially … that’s why the solution has to be on the box.)
The subject line is perhaps not too informative, and probably overly
restrictive (I don’t care about using ~ … I just need multiple
apps), but I hope my question is clear from the text.