# Using mongrel to serve 2 rails apps **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [January 23, 2007, 12:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009 "2007-01-23T00:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 12:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/1 "2007-01-23T00:36:13Z")
hi, i’m using mongrel as my production webserver, and i want to serve 2 rails apps e.g. [www.myapp.com](http://www.myapp.com) [www.myapp.com/forums](http://www.myapp.com/forums) i want in effect to connect the second app to /forums on the same url. currently i have 2 mongrels running as follows:- my main app on port 80 at [www.myapp.com](http://www.myapp.com) my forums app on port 81 at [www.myapp.com](http://www.myapp.com) rather than giving out the URL www.myapp,com:81 for my forums, I would like to use [应用宝官网-全网最新最热手机应用游戏下载](http://www.myapp.com/forums) and have this redirect invisibly to [www.my.com:81](http://www.my.com:81) i’ve looked on the mongrel website and I’ve come across mongrel clusters and also mogrel configuration scripts - but this all quite complex and i’m not sure if either is the answer. any pointers? cheers, -john ---
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 1:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/2 "2007-01-23T01:05:23Z")
John H. wrote: > I’d suggest putting a web server with load balancing and proxying support in front of your mongrels such as Apache or Lighty. Then use the prefix feature of mongrel to bind app2 to /forums/. –R ---
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 1:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/3 "2007-01-23T01:11:46Z")
Randall Potter wrote: > John H. wrote: > > > > > I’d suggest putting a web server with load balancing and proxying > support in front of your mongrels such as Apache or Lighty. Then use > the prefix feature of mongrel to bind app2 to /forums/. > > –R thanks Randall - i have lighty installed but i’m not sure how to ‘put in in front’ of the two mongrels… presumably i start the 2 mongrels on some higher port numbers, say 8100 and 8101. then run lighty on port 80. then do i not then need to tell lighty to bind /forums/ to the 2nd mongrel? (or something like that…) cheers, -john ---
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 11:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/4 "2007-01-23T11:59:53Z")
Hello, You could also try the following: Use ‘mongrel\_rails start’ with ‘–script=/path/to/script.rb’ and use any options you like in this file, especially the uri[1] method. You can then mount handlers to different mount points. It should work, but I never tested it, so I’ve no idea concerning performance issues. Best regards [1] [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/rdoc/classes/Mongrel/Configurator.html#M000101](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/rdoc/classes/Mongrel/Configurator.html#M000101) John H. schrieb: ---
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2007, 9:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/5 "2007-01-26T21:09:03Z")
thanks Randall, i’m getting close now… but still not quite there yet… i have 2 mongrels on 8100 and 8101. i’m trying to configure lighty to point / to 8100 and /forums to 8101. so, just starting with the main site on 8100, i have this in my lighttpd.conf file… proxy.balance = “hash” proxy.server = ( “/” =\> (( “host” =\> “127.0.0.1”, “port” =\> 8100)) but all i get is a blank page - which is better than an error message i guess… does anyone have a working lighttpd.conf file i could learn from? cheers, -john ---
**Author:** ![jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/b2d939/32.png) [@jh100000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jh100000)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/using-mongrel-to-serve-2-rails-apps/83009/6 "2007-01-23T05:08:47Z")
John H. wrote: > (or something like that…) > > cheers, > > -john You do need to tell Lighty where to find the mongrels it’s forwarding to. Look into the documentation for Lighty’s mod\_proxy for the syntax. Using your example; you want to forward / to your primary app at [http://localhost:8100](http://localhost:8100) and forward /forums/ to http:localhost:8101. When you start the mongrel(s) for the forum application you need to be sure to pass the --prefix=/ option (e.g. mongrel\_rails start –prefix=/forums -e production -d ) otherwise, your link\_to, button\_to et. al. will get confused and keep trying to send you back to app1. –R