# Which linux for nginx/mongrel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Deployment\ **Created:** [February 14, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489 "2007-02-14T00:07:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/1 "2007-02-14T00:07:10Z")
Hi all! Well, I’m stuck again. I’m still trying to set up web servers to run a mongrel cluster behind nginx. I’ve successfully setup Apache 2.2 with a 5 and 10 mongrel cluster on a Windows server for testing but as a linux noob I’m having a hellish time just trying to compile and install nginx on a linux box. I can’t even get past compiling. ☹ I need some professional guidance again. I tried on CentOS 4.4 and now on Fedora 6 and still no luck. I think I’m missing some basic elements for compiling but I’m not sure what. I can’t seem to find any tutorials that are detailed enough for what I’m trying to do. So, I wonder now if I am even choosing the right linux flavor or if I’m just overlooking some things. I see tutorials aimed at Debian, is this the guy I should be using? Ubuntu? etc. Remember that I have 3 new servers: 2 each Dell 1950’s (16gb ram, mirrored drives and 1 each Dell 2950 with 16gb ram and mirrored boot drives and a RAID5). Any assistance is appreciated, Raul ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 1:55am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/2 "2007-02-14T01:55:18Z")
Raul - A suggestion: check out Litespeed ([www.litespeedtech.com](http://www.litespeedtech.com)). It’s very easy to install, has native Rails support, and it really gives you 80% of the benefits for 20% of the effort (assuming you don’t want to become a Unix expert). If you have higher needs than that, I would recommend not doing everything yourself but choosing a high-end solution like EngineYard ([www.engineyard.com](http://www.engineyard.com)) where much of the management is done for you (and you are running and truly top-of-the line infrastructure). ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 4:38am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/3 "2007-02-14T04:38:33Z")
Thanks for the response. Well my company bought me these brand new servers so I think I’ll try o give it a bit more effort before consider a hosted solution but I thanks you for your honest suggestion. I’ve got lots of systems admin experience so hopefully I can turn this to my favor with linux. Litespeed. Thanks for the link, I will check it out! Raul ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 5:30am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/4 "2007-02-14T05:30:35Z")
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi Raul, I second the recommendation for Litespeed. I tried it out on a memory > On 2/13/07, Mike Sax \ wrote: > > > (and you > > are running and truly top-of-the line infrastructure). > > > * * * Thanks, Dan * * * Dan K. Autopilot Marketing Inc. Email: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Phone: 1 (604) 820-0212 Web: [http://autopilotmarketing.com/](http://autopilotmarketing.com/) vCard: [http://autopilotmarketing.com/~dan.kubb/vcard](http://autopilotmarketing.com/~dan.kubb/vcard) * * * -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (Darwin) iD8DBQFF0pAi4DfZD7OEWk0RAsTGAKCvDxLeADkKe4w5pLjNAFxYiIyWTwCdF6IP oSnfRuMpjVyQp0uaC48AxDE= =u2Li -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 5:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/5 "2007-02-14T05:33:35Z")
Hi Raul, Whoops. Sorry about the first reply – hit the Send button too soon. I second the recommendation for Litespeed. I tried it out on a memory limited VPS and it performed the slightly better than Nginx/Mongrel. The ruby processes that Litespeed starts up use less memory than Mongrel - Rails, in my case at least. Dan On 13-Feb-07, at 7:37 PM, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > > everything yourself but choosing a high-end solution like EngineYard > > ([www.engineyard.com](http://www.engineyard.com)) where much of the management is done for you > > (and you > > are running and truly top-of-the line infrastructure). * * * Dan K. Autopilot Marketing Inc. Email: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Phone: 1 (604) 820-0212 Web: [http://autopilotmarketing.com/](http://autopilotmarketing.com/) vCard: [http://autopilotmarketing.com/~dan.kubb/vcard](http://autopilotmarketing.com/~dan.kubb/vcard) * * * ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 9:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/6 "2007-02-14T09:07:51Z")
Zed, that’s a great message! Definitely worthy of turning it into a blog post for the rest of the world to enjoy. Raul, one thing I didn’t mention about Litespeed is that it’s not open source. The free version is mostly likely as much as you’ll ever need, but if you want a 100% open source solution, it’s not an option. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 8:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/7 "2007-02-14T08:33:47Z")
On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:06:41 -0800 Raul [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi all! Well, I’m stuck again. I’m still trying to set up web servers to run a mongrel cluster behind nginx. I’ve successfully setup Apache 2.2 with a 5 and 10 mongrel cluster on a Windows server for testing but as a linux noob I’m having a hellish time just trying to compile and install nginx on a linux box. I can’t even get past compiling. Raul, looks like folks are trying to sell you stuff so I’m going to give you some additional information so you can make an informed decision. THE BEST ADMIN BOOK EVER Litespeed and EngineYard are both good decisions, but eventually you’ll have to learn how to manage your systems anyway, so you might as well learn it now. Go get this book: [http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-Handbook-3rd/dp/0130206016](http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-Handbook-3rd/dp/0130206016) And then a few more on basic unix or any that people who bought that book recommend. Notice I don’t make any referral bonuses off telling you to buy this. This book taught me most of what I know about system administration and is a great sysadmin cookbook. Since this list is populated by system administrators who are infected with Not Invented Here syndrome I’m sure you’ll get all of their favorite Linux books. Use your favorite online book seller to check out reviews and then buy one or two to learn from. THE BASE PLATFORM Remember you can use nginx or apache and be good, but at first you can also just run Mongrel. In fact, if you’re struggling with Unix then skip any other solution and just have Mongrel go stag to the party until you need more. If you have a Mac then follow these instructions: > **[Dan Benjamin](https://danbenjamin.com)** > > Dan Benjamin's personal website. If you’ve got Linux, then try Debian (god saying that makes me cry) with Coda’s instructions: [http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/](http://blog.codahale.com/2006/06/19/time-for-a-grown-up-server-rails-mongrel-apache-capistrano-and-you/) And the Mongrel instructions: [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/docs/debian-sarge.html](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/docs/debian-sarge.html) Plan on screwing this up about the first 10 times, erasing the whole machine and starting over from scratch. After you do it from beginning to end once without any mistakes you’ll have learned enough to really manage the systems and take charge. IRC HELP Feel free to hit me up on [irc.freenode.org](http://irc.freenode.org) in #rubyonrails. I’m zedas there. I’m super nice to newbies. PAST EXPERIENCE I’ve run nginx and apache with mongrel on the following: - CentOS - Solid but you need to install more stuff via yum. - RHEL - Disgusting, avoid it since you end up rebuilding half the system. - FreeBSD - Very nice, haven’t used it in a while but easy to get all up. - ArchLinux - This is what I use. No hassles at all. Ruby is actually installed as ruby and with only one package. - OSX - Pretty simple once you get past using darwinports/fink to install requisites. Next version of OSX will include a full set of gear and then some. - Ubuntu - Eh, it’s Debian so follow the mongrel instructions for what packages to install, otherwise very usable. Mongrel is also reported to work on nearly everything that Ruby works on, including: - OpenBSD - I like these guys because they make fun of Debian too. - NetBSD - I haven’t tried this, but pkgsrc is pretty cool. Too bad it can’t build ruby for a damn on Linux. - Solaris - Apparently ruby gear runs real fast on Solaris, but that’s from Sun so pack your table salt. - Windows - Lots of folks use this. - Alien Spacecraft - But only if they don’t need really good IO. And I’m sure there’s plenty I missed (so anyone else reading this just keep your panties unbunched). I also know most of the companies running Mongrel and they all run their stuff on this range of OS. My informal survey says that CentOS and Debian are the most popular. HOSTING I won’t play favorites so here’s a list of the companies I know of: - Engine Y. - Railsmachine - Media Temple - Rails Playground - Planet Argon - Joyent - Dreamhost - Textdrive And I’m sure I’m missing some and have multiple companies confused with each other since they constantly move around so people should feel free to jump in and mention their companies. [Actually, if you’re running Mongrel and offering hosting and I don’t remember you then you should fire your entire marketing team and plan on being out of business in a few months.] BTW, Railsmachine and Engine Y. are the only two who’ve contributed to helping Mongrel. Railsmachine (Bradley) did the mongrel\_cluster and railsmachine gems that are ultra handy while also donating money towards the next version of Mongrel. Engine Y. (Ezra) did Merb and he pioneered the nginx configurations as well as working on parts of Mongrel. If I’d recommend any it’s those two simply because they actually help support the infrastructure that makes them money. And no, writing a 6 paragraph blog post about bogus 4000 req/sec performance metrics is not contributing. BOOKS I wrote a book so mine’s first, but you should check out all of them and grab one or two if you need help in Rails deployment and management. I highly recommend the O’Reilly Rails Cookbook because I use the damn thing daily and Rob Orsini is a cool dude. I recommend my book because it’s funny and useful. In fact I like all of these authors so grab the ones that suit you. All of these books are also available on the Safari bookshelf thingy except the Brazilian one. [http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321483502&rl=1](http://www.awprofessional.com/bookstore/product.asp?isbn=0321483502&rl=1) [http://safari.oreilly.com/0596527314](http://safari.oreilly.com/0596527314) [http://www.balanceonrails.com.br/](http://www.balanceonrails.com.br/) [http://safari.oreilly.com/059652854X](http://safari.oreilly.com/059652854X) [http://safari.oreilly.com/0596101325](http://safari.oreilly.com/0596101325) [http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/](http://www.pragmaticprogrammer.com/) – search is broke. [http://www.awprofessional.com/promotions/promotion.asp?promo=3585&redir=1&rl=1](http://www.awprofessional.com/promotions/promotion.asp?promo=3585&redir=1&rl=1) The pragmatic programmer’s have a small section on Mongrel in the latest rails book, but the writing and instructions are garbage. Ezra has a really good book coming out under pragprog on deploying rails but I’m not sure if he’s finished it or if it’s in beta still. And again I’m sure I missed some, so google around and wait for people to yell at me for not pimping their stuff. ADVICE Thanks to Rails there’s more and more people like you being thrust into managing Linux for the first time. Just like when you first started to learn to code you’ll go through a period where you will suck and it’ll be hard as hell. Keep going, keep reading, and keep breaking things and then fixing them until you don’t break stuff anymore. Running off to a commercial product isn’t bad, but it won’t help your core problem which is a lack of knowledge of even basic tools. The best situation is knowing your stuff and using a commercial product that simplifies things for you. So learn to do this stuff right and then go do the easy stuff–just like Calculus class. 🙂 Otherwise, you can do very large very enterprise class installations without shelling out anything more than your own time and learning effort. Good luck. – Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. [http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502](http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502) – The Mongrel Book [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/) [http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8](http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8) – Come get help. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 11:52am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/8 "2007-02-14T11:52:11Z")
Thanks for a great post Zed. I will spend sometime dissecting it. Raul, I was in a similar boat. Over the last 10 years I have been a professional software developer for Windows and done a smattering of System Administration of Windows machines. So I was confronted with a decision when I decided to become a Rails developer and knowing that I would be deploying to Linux (wanted to use VPS). What I decided to do was format my harddrive and install Linux as my main operating system. No safety net, no going back. It was time consuming at first and frustrating. But it really isn’t harder than Windows, just different. I have settled on Kubuntu as my distro of choice for development (Debian based) as it is one of the simplest ones to get going and use. Get rails and development tools working was simple (plenty of step by step guides on the web). I haven’t deployed anything yet, but I am increasing comfortable with Linux so won’t feel as intimidated when the time comes. Cheers, Anthony R. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 9:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/9 "2007-02-14T09:56:57Z")
Wow, thanks for the mentions Mike and Zed! I’ll make an unabashed self-reference here and point out an extremely informative ebook written by a couple of extremely handsome gents: 🙂 [http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsapp/index.html](http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/railsapp/index.html) Since I’m feeling particularly brazen, I’ll also mention that we engineered modifications that were accepted into Capistrano 1.3 which really help with “interesting” installations. Zed, please contact us about funding. I had no idea you were taking contributions. Can’t let that nice gent Bradley pull all the weight by himself! P.S. I disagree that you’ll eventually need to learn how to manage your own systems. We have many customers who had applications written and know nothing about managing Unix systems. 🙂 That said, the more you know, the better off you’ll be, so by all means take Zed’s good advice anyway. – – Tom M., CTO – Engine Y. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 2:08pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/10 "2007-02-14T14:08:25Z")
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 12:10:42 +0000 Sam A. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Red Hat on the cover, which is clearly Linux! Oh, the confusion!) > Aha! Sam, right you are. I forgot that the Linux one is more recent > even though it has a 2nd edition rather than 3rd. The UNIX handbook is > great if you have to manage a bunch of the weirder older systems. – Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. [http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502](http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502) – The Mongrel Book [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/) [http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8](http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8) – Come get help. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 2:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/11 "2007-02-14T14:50:29Z")
On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:56:13 -0000 “removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Wow, thanks for the mentions Mike and Zed! Not to be a dick Tom, but I actually mentioned Ezra. If you helped write the code he cranks out and contributes then sorry. Otherwise, I was praising EY because of Ezra’s work. > contributions. Can’t let that nice gent Bradley pull all the weight by > himself! Bradley also bought me a sweet iPod nano red that helps fight AIDS and with the engraving “Faster Is Possible, Thanks for Mongrel”. That’s way more kick ass than money, that’s someone just being nice. Or how Apple gave all the people who contributed to Mongrel free OSX seed keys and a trip to WWDC. I think the worst was someone who insisted on buying me a drink even though I insisted I don’t drink. Anyway, I’ll plan hold you to that offer if/when I start doing the 2.0 plan. > P.S. I disagree that you’ll eventually need to learn how to manage > your own systems. We have many customers who had applications written > and know nothing about managing Unix systems. 🙂 That said, the more > you know, the better off you’ll be, so by all means take Zed’s good > advice anyway. Yeah, guys like me are a dying breed. I couldn’t imagine being a slave to someone else because of intellectual laziness. – Zed A. Shaw, MUDCRAP-CE Master Black Belt Sifu > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. [http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502](http://www.awprofessional.com/title/0321483502) – The Mongrel Book [http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/) [http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8](http://www.lingr.com/room/3yXhqKbfPy8) – Come get help. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 1:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/12 "2007-02-14T13:11:17Z")
Zed, > THE BEST ADMIN BOOK EVER > > Go get this book: > > [http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-Handbook-3rd/dp/](http://www.amazon.com/UNIX-System-Administration-Handbook-3rd/dp/) > 0130206016 Is there any reason you recommend this particular book? On looking around Amazon, I found this: [http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Administration-Handbook-2nd-Nemeth/dp/](http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Administration-Handbook-2nd-Nemeth/dp/) 0131480049/sr=1-1/qid=1171454843/ref=pd\_bbs\_sr\_1/105-6108692-8598807? ie=UTF8&s=books Which looked to be a bit more recent, and by the same (similar) authors. Would you still push for the UNIX handbook? (Even though it mentions Red Hat on the cover, which is clearly Linux! Oh, the confusion!) Sam A. * * * > **[Sam Aaron - A Communicative Programmer](http://sam.aaron.name)** > > Dr. Sam Aaron is a software architect and computational thinker with a deep fascination with the notion of communicative programming. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 7:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/13 "2007-02-14T19:05:11Z")
I love this post! Spicy, extra crispy as they say in the fried chicken biz. I REALLY appreciate the frank advice that everyone has contributed to this post going on down throuhg all the responses. And I’m excited about the fact that all the folks who created all the stuff I’m trying to use or read from are right here - accessible to me and others needing help! Ok back to the task at hand, I already bought Rails Cookbook (just got it 2 days ago and it’s fantastic!) as well as the Pickaxe, Agile Web Dev 2nd edition (already read most all of it and it’s working), Rails Recipes and Ajax on Rails (for the near future). I’m already feeling very comfortable with Rails development so it sounds like the missing link is just a good linux reference. I’ll look into that second book mentioned. Having many years of enterprise sys admin experience (now mostly free to focus on web development - yay!) I’d rather be more closely aware of what my servers are running and be able to maintain them. I also have to give our IT dept’s Sys Admin a crash course on this stuff after I document a fully successful deployment on one machine so he can go on to setting up and administering all the others. Then I’ll be on to the next step…Capistrano. It seems like a tall mountain to climb but the CEO is very impulsive and impatient so I think I’d rather be Agile on the development end of things rather than on the deployment end. Hence, I chose Rails over PHP and .NET, both of which I’ve already been using for quite some time. This way I can keep dev time to a minimum and flexibility of design to a max. Thanks again for the honesty and guidance. I’m going forward now, trying out a couple of more linux flavors… Raul ----- Original Message ----- From: “Zed A. Shaw” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) To: [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 2:34 AM Subject: [Rails-deploy] Re: Which linux for nginx/mongrel? ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 3:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/14 "2007-02-19T03:49:40Z")
First of all, this is my first post to this group and I’d like to thank whomever started this bad boy up. I’ve been watching via daily abridged updates that Google sends and I couldn’t be happier – real world advice from real world rock stars! Zed, thanks for the post above. A lot of great information in one place. Yes, you can make it without knowing Linux/Unix if you go with a hosted solution like EY or the like but you’ve got nothing to lose by learning as much about your deployment environment as possible. This helps you communicate problems or issues a little better because you know what’s going on underneath the hood. And, as far as I know, most people find this kind of learning actually enjoyable. 😉 Another thing … I’d like to thank Zed and Tom for both taking part in O’Reilly’s Shortcuts dealio. It’s awesome to be able to get so much golden information in one small, compact source. The Shortcuts are a major reason why I’m a subscriber to the Safari service and I’m always stoked when Rails-related information comes across the radar. The Shortcuts I’m talking about… [Mongrel: Serving, Deploying, and Extending Your Ruby Applications](http://safari.oreilly.com/0321483502 "Mongrel: Serving, Deploying, and Extending Your Ruby Applications") and [Capistrano and the Rails Application Lifecycle](http://safari.oreilly.com/0596529627 "Capistrano and the Rails Application Lifecycle") Again, thanks guys. With your help, I’m looking forward to launching some production apps in the very near future! -Chris ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 6:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/15 "2007-02-14T18:10:03Z")
On Feb 14, 8:35 am, “Zed A. Shaw” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:56:13 -0000 > > “removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > Wow, thanks for the mentions Mike and Zed! > > Not to be a dick Tom, but I actually mentioned Ezra. If you helped > write the code he cranks out and contributes then sorry. Otherwise, I > was praising EY because of Ezra’s work. Have I done something to anger you that I don’t know about? I meant thanks for the Engine Y. mentions, and I was clear you were praising Ezra’s work. We encourage and support his work in all ways. The mention I was thank you for was: “BTW, Railsmachine and Engine Yard are the only two who’ve contributed to helping Mongrel.” As a founder of Engine Y., I felt entirely OK about thanking you for that mention. Not entirely sure why the clarification was necessary, and definitely not sure why you did it in a way that seems to suggest I was stealing Ezra’s glory, or misrepresenting what you said. > > P.S. I disagree that you’ll eventually need to learn how to manage > > your own systems. We have many customers who had applications written > > and know nothing about managing Unix systems. 🙂 That said, the more > > you know, the better off you’ll be, so by all means take Zed’s good > > advice anyway. > > Yeah, guys like me are a dying breed. I couldn’t imagine being a slave > to someone else because of intellectual laziness. I entirely agreed with your recommendations, calling it good advice. I have never once considered my customers slaves, nor do I consider someone who decided to pay someone else for their expertise a slave. I’d be surprised if my customers consider themselves slaves. In fact, many of them have expressed that running their own servers 24x7 previously was as close to slavery as they care to get. 🙂 – – Tom M., CTO – Engine Y. ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 3:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/16 "2007-02-19T03:54:40Z")
First of all, this is my first post to this group and I’d like to thank whomever started this bad boy up. I’ve been watching via daily abridged updates that Google sends and I couldn’t be happier – real world advice from real world rock stars! Zed, thanks for the post above. A lot of great information in one place. Yes, you can make it without knowing Linux/Unix if you go with a hosted solution like EY or the like but you’ve got nothing to lose by learning as much about your deployment environment as possible. This helps you communicate problems or issues a little better because you know what’s going on underneath the hood. And, as far as I know, most people find this kind of learning actually enjoyable. 😉 Another thing … I’d like to thank Zed and Tom for both taking part in O’Reilly’s Shortcuts dealio. It’s awesome to be able to get so much information in one small, compact source. Seriously, those things are _gold_. In fact, the Shortcuts are a major reason why I’m a subscriber to the Safari service and I’m always stoked when Rails- related information comes across the radar. The Shortcuts I’m talking about… Mongrel: Serving, Deploying, and Extending Your Ruby Applications ( [O'Reilly Media - Technology and Business Training](http://safari.oreilly.com/0321483502) ) and Capistrano and the Rails Application Lifecycle ( [O'Reilly Media - Technology and Business Training](http://safari.oreilly.com/0596529627) ) Again, thanks guys. With your help, I’m looking forward to launching some production apps in the very near future! -Chris ---
**Author:** ![raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/958977/32.png) [@raul](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/raul)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/which-linux-for-nginx-mongrel/85489/17 "2007-02-21T23:57:05Z")
Hi everyone. I just wanted to report back my progress after following some of the great suggestions here, in combination with info at the Mongrel site, deployment instructions in the Rails Cookbook and various other web resources found via Google. This is what I have so far: - I feel MUCH more confortable with linux now after extensive reading and experimenting! - I ended up running CentOS 4.4 because it was the only one I could get to recognize all my hardware straight away (tested with Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Core 6 (got my hardware but didn’t recognize over 3gb of my 16gb of ram and finally CentOS) - I’ve got nginx 0.5.12 running from an RPM I found online (much easier than having to figure out the compilation prereqs, I’ll get to that I promise!) - installed Ruby, RubyGems, Rails, mongrel\_cluster and Mongrel (I learned all about using yum for some package management too) - used Ezra’s nginx.conf with some minimal tweaks for file paths - got nginx and Mongrel auto starting on reboot In all this I learned about RPM, yum, chown, tar, cp and general browsing of the folder/file structure. I think I’m starting to get it. Now I have Nginx responding at [http://localhost](http://localhost) and from any other PC in my network (from [http://172.x.x.x](http://172.x.x.x)) as well so that’s good. I also have mongrel responding with my default Rails app on all the ports I chose locally though not yet from browsers on other PCs though I’m not sure what’s causing this just yet. So it’s on to the next step of setting up Subversion, Capistrano and then play around with Xen to get everything up on virtuals. And also setup my MySQL server the same way. The wonderful world of database replication. I’d like to see what Linux boxes can do with clustering too… Too ambitious? Probably! Thanks again, Raul