# Script/server lighttpd on Windows **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 26, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873 "2006-04-26T19:43:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/1 "2006-04-26T19:43:27Z")
Has anyone been able to get script/server to successfully use lighttpd on a Windows box? When I try to start the server I get: PROBLEM: Lighttpd is not available on your system (or not in your path) So then I add “C:\lighttpd\sbin” to the path for the console session, and it still fails with the same error. If anyone has some success with this I sure would like to know. Webrick is slow and single threaded, neither of which are working for me. ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/2 "2006-04-26T20:02:01Z")
On 4/26/06, Alex W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > The lighttpd server script has this code in it: unless RUBY\_PLATFORM !~ /mswin/ && !silence\_stderr { `lighttpd -version` }.blank? puts “PROBLEM: Lighttpd is not available on your system (or not in your path)” exit 1 end …which means it will always fail on Win32. Have you tried Mongrel? It’s very fast, and very well-supported on Windows. ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/3 "2006-04-26T20:17:15Z")
Wilson B. wrote: > On 4/26/06, Alex W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > > The lighttpd server script has this code in it: > unless RUBY\_PLATFORM !~ /mswin/ && !silence\_stderr { `lighttpd -version` }.blank? > puts “PROBLEM: Lighttpd is not available on your system (or not in > your path)” > exit 1 > end > > …which means it will always fail on Win32. > > Have you tried Mongrel? It’s very fast, and very well-supported on > Windows. Dang, I just want to use lighty for development, not serve an app publicly. Is mongrel easy to start and stop like script/server and will work well for developing a rails app? ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/4 "2006-04-26T20:28:46Z")
This might be of interest… found on the lighttpd on Windows as a service using FireDaemon > **[Run Any Application Program or Script as Windows Service](https://www.firedaemon.com)** > > Create, run, and monitor any application program or script as a Windows service. Crash and hang detection to ensure uptime, availability and resiliency I am also interested in Mongrel and Lighttpd. I run Apache on Windows with a lot of PHP stuff installed, and it appears right now the best way to run rails apps is to pass rail app requests past Apache to Mongrel or replace Apache with Lighttpd, then make all my existing PHP stuff work on Lighttpd. Which I am not enthused about. Am I quoting the best current Windows options correctly? (aside from getting off Windows of course…) Alex W. wrote: > Wilson B. wrote: > > > On 4/26/06, Alex W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > > > > > > The lighttpd server script has this code in it: > > unless RUBY\_PLATFORM !~ /mswin/ && !silence\_stderr { `lighttpd -version` }.blank? > > puts “PROBLEM: Lighttpd is not available on your system (or not in > > your path)” > > exit 1 > > end > > > > …which means it will always fail on Win32. > > > > Have you tried Mongrel? It’s very fast, and very well-supported on > > Windows. > > Dang, I just want to use lighty for development, not serve an app > publicly. > > Is mongrel easy to start and stop like script/server and will work well > for developing a rails app? ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/5 "2006-04-26T20:39:32Z")
On 4/26/06, Alex W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Yep. “mongrel\_rails start” is all you need, and there are command-line options to enable very nice debugging output. ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/6 "2006-04-26T21:38:53Z")
> I’m curious. What’s your reason for wanting to use lighty for > development? Well not specifically lighty I guess, just something faster than webrick. And not only is webrick slow but single threaded, and my app has a few long running actions that report their progress via ajax calls. The problem is that since Webrick is single threaded it cant process the ajax calls while the long running action is working. Currently I actually have to upload it the server in order to test it, causing unnecesary svn commits. I’ll see if mongrel can tickle my fancy. ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/7 "2006-04-26T22:31:37Z")
Alex W. wrote: > I’ll see if mongrel can tickle my fancy. WEBrick itself isn’t single threaded (and I’m not sure that it’s slow, either). Running Rails under WEBrick is single threaded, and the same is true of running Rails under Mongrel. To get concurrency you need multiple server processes - whether FastCGI, SCGI, or Mongrel - running behind Apache, lighty, or something else. regards Justin ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/8 "2006-04-26T20:39:37Z")
Hi Alex, Alex W. wrote: > Dang, I just want to use lighty for development, > not serve an app publicly. I’m curious. What’s your reason for wanting to use lighty for development? > Is mongrel easy to start and stop like script/server > and will work well for developing a rails app? Yes. Mongrel is just as easy as WEBrick. Rather than ‘ruby script\server’, to use Mongrel ---
**Author:** ![squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@squeegy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/squeegy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2006, 5:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/script-server-lighttpd-on-windows/58873/9 "2006-04-27T05:01:01Z")
On 4/26/06 3:38 PM, “Alex W.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I’ll see if mongrel can tickle my fancy. Sorry Alex, not matter what Rails has to get locked. If you have very long running processes and need to give updated status, there’s a pattern you should probably look into. Basically, you offload the real work to a DRb server (they’re trivial to write). The DRb server then gives you status on the job which you report via Ajax. When the work is done you collect the result from the DRb server and display it. Here’s a basic kind of pseudo code (which I’ve _got_ to write up soon): def setup\_work worker = WorkerClient.new(host, port) # you write this client with DRb ticket = worker.dowork(“blah”) session[:ticket] = ticket end def ajaxy\_worker\_done\_check worker = WorkerClient.new(host, port) if worker.is\_done(session[:ticket]) render :partial =\> “worker\_done” else render :partial =\> “worker\_not\_done” end end def work\_done results = worker.get\_results(session[:ticket]) end None of that will work out of the box, just kind of there to give you an idea. WorkerClient would be a simple DRb client that you’d connect to a DRb server that receives work commands. DRb is ultra easy so don’t be afraid. In setup\_work you get the worker to dowork and it returns a little ticket (probably just a simple integer ID) that you can use later to poll for results. You browser then uses some nifty ajax to hit the ajaxy\_worker\_done\_check. All this action does is fire up a WorkerClient and ask the worker if the job with the given ticket is done yet. When it’s not you return the right partial to keep the ajax going. If it is you return the partial that makes the ajax progress go to the work\_done action. At the work\_done action you simply take the ticket and get the results. There’s about a billion variants of this technique, but the idea is that the setup\_work action gets out right away, the work is offloaded to another server to do the waiting and crunching, and the results are collected later. This keeps your Rails nice and snappy. But, the real benefit of this is that you can actually move _all_ of this code out to a snazzy ultra fast Mongrel handler and not even use Rails. You might have to use rails in the setup\_worker and most definitely in work\_done, but in the ajaxy\_worker\_done\_check it would only be using DRb so no need to hook up rails. Only change you’d have to make is to pass the ticket in via a Mongrel Handler’s request params rather than using the session (which also makes this stateless). Well, good luck. Zed A. Shaw > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/)