# Unicorn 0.8.2 and 0.9.1

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicorn-0-8-2-and-0-9-1/171791>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [July 9, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicorn-0-8-2-and-0-9-1/171791 "2009-07-09T11:10:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/97f17d/32.png) [@ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ericw)\
**Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicorn-0-8-2-and-0-9-1/171791/1 "2009-07-09T11:10:36Z")

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Unicorn is a Rack HTTP server for Unix, fast clients and nothing else

Socket handling bugfixes and socket-related usability and  
performance tweaks. We no longer trust FD\_CLOEXEC to be  
inherited across accept(); thanks to Paul Sponagl for diagnosing  
this issue on OSX. There are also minor tweaks backported from  
0.9.0 to make non-graceful restarts/upgrades go more smoothly.

The 0.9.x series (including 0.9.1) is NOT recommended for  
production use, try 0.8.2 instead.

- site: [http://unicorn.bogomips.org/](http://unicorn.bogomips.org/)
- git: git://git.bogomips.org/unicorn.git
- cgit: [Rack HTTP server for Unix and fast clients](http://git.bogomips.org/cgit/unicorn.git/)
- list: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

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**Author:** ![ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/97f17d/32.png) [@ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ericw)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicorn-0-8-2-and-0-9-1/171791/2 "2009-07-10T15:33:39Z")

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Eric W. wrote:

> Unicorn is a Rack HTTP server for Unix, fast clients and nothing else

So who exactly would benefit most from this library? What is the target  
audience? Just wondering more background on it.  
Thanks.  
=r

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/97f17d/32.png) [@ericw](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ericw)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicorn-0-8-2-and-0-9-1/171791/3 "2009-07-10T21:53:27Z")

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Roger P. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> Eric W. wrote:
> 
> > Unicorn is a Rack HTTP server for Unix, fast clients and nothing else
> 
> So who exactly would benefit most from this library? What is the target  
> audience? Just wondering more background on it.

The target audience is people deploying/maintaining/managing HTTP apps  
that only clients within their LAN are expected/allowed to hit. Of  
course, with a decent reverse proxy in front, all traffic from the  
reverse proxy can be considered internal and fast (unless your LAN is  
horrible).

Clients don’t have to be on a Unix-like OS, of course.

It’s also a testing ground for features that may make it into Mongrel 2  
(assuming portability requirements are met). Unicorn gives us more  
freedom to exploit features unique to Unix-like systems (and maybe even  
(optionally) Linux 2.6+ in the future).

Fwiw, I’ve known about (and implemented similar (but meaner :)) things  
like the recently-disclosed Slowloris for several years now. That’s why  
we refuse to support Unicorn talking directly to the Internet at large.

There’s also some philosophy and design notes here that describe why we  
did some of the things we did:

[The Philosophy Behind unicorn](http://unicorn.bogomips.org/PHILOSOPHY.html)  
[Design](http://unicorn.bogomips.org/DESIGN.html)