# Why Mongrel with NginX **URL:** \ **Category:** Mongrel\ **Created:** [August 8, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394 "2008-08-08T18:35:46Z")\ **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:** [August 8, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/1 "2008-08-08T18:35:46Z")
Hi, I’m a newbie to Ruby. I’m installing an small server (256MB RAM) with NginX, Neko, Perl, PHP4, PHP5, Ruby & MySQL. It’s easy Perl, Neko & PHP with FastCGI but why to use a mongrel cluster? It’s my first time with nginx & ruby, so why I should use mongrel? Why not just FastCGI-ruby if available? Is mongrel cluster too much load for 256MB RAM? With PHP there is no security for shared servers. How does ruby handle shared hosting security? Is there an appropriate way to install ruby-mongrel this way? Thanks ---
**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:** [August 8, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/2 "2008-08-08T20:42:22Z")
> Hi, I’m a newbie to Ruby. I’m installing an small server (256MB RAM) > with NginX, Neko, Perl, PHP4, PHP5, Ruby & MySQL. It’s easy Perl, > Neko & PHP with FastCGI but why to use a mongrel cluster? Because that’s the way it works this side of reality 😉 no, really, you could run most Ruby apps using different setups (i.e. with FastCGI as you say), but it’s actually much simpler to do it via Mongrel. > It’s my first time with nginx & ruby, so why I should use mongrel? > Why not just FastCGI-ruby if available? Is mongrel cluster too much > load for 256MB RAM? It varies tremendously with the kind of applications you develope. I will assume that, as is the case with most new Ruby webapps, you are developing Rails. In my server, each Mongrel instance takes typically between 20 and 50 MB RAM, for smallish applications. Of course, you will probably have to add the Web server you choose (i.e. nginex) and the RDBMS. However, running Mongrel clusters makes it easy, if not trivial, to split the load among several machines. Yes, this is not the _perfect_ way of scaling if your app load grows, but it is… good enough 🙂 > With PHP there is no security for shared servers. How does ruby > handle shared hosting security? Is there an appropriate way to > install ruby-mongrel this way? You can have many different models. PHP’s main problem in this regard is that it is most often run inside the Web server - so all instances are run as the same user. You can do it differently, i.e. setting it up via different FastCGI processes, but I’m talking about the general case. With Mongrel, you can launch each instance as a different user - The webserver just opens a socket to talk with Mongrel, but each Mongrel can be owned by a different user, and get the user’s set of permissions. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2008, 9:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/3 "2008-08-08T21:41:38Z")
> It varies tremendously with the kind of applications you develope. I > will assume that, as is the case with most new Ruby webapps, you are > developing Rails. In my server, each Mongrel instance takes typically > between 20 and 50 MB RAM, for smallish applications. In this scenario, I’ll wait to get an other VPS because 2 mongrel instances are taking more ram than the rest of the server. In the event of high load my VPS will start killing any process because doesn’t have swap space. What specs you would request for a ruby server (maybe just mongrel cluster and mysql listening to the prior VPS) > With Mongrel, you can launch each instance as a different user - > The webserver just opens a socket to talk with Mongrel, but each > Mongrel can be owned by a different user, and get the user’s set of > permissions. So, a shared server is not the best approach for ruby (or getting the same problems of PHP). Having 100 accounts with the corresponding instance would be problematic. Thank you ---
**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:** [August 10, 2008, 3:00pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/4 "2008-08-10T15:00:44Z")
Hi John On Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 6:35 PM, John H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Hi, I’m a newbie to Ruby. I’m installing an small server (256MB RAM) > with NginX, Neko, Perl, PHP4, PHP5, Ruby & MySQL. It’s easy Perl, Neko & > PHP with FastCGI but why to use a mongrel cluster? The only conceptual difference is the protocol being used between the reverse-proxy (nginx in this case) and the application servers. FastCGI is a protocol for reverse-proxies to speak to application servers. FastCGI is strange because it carries HTTP but is not HTTP. With a Mongrel-style setup your application servers speak to the reverse-proxy via HTTP. FastCGI has a slight advantage over HTTP in that it’s easier to parser and more space-efficient on the line. However it adds an extra layer of complexity - an extra protocol. You can’t, for example, use CURL to access a FastCGI application server. The structure is the same though - a load balancer reverse proxy process (nginx) and many application server processes (mongrel or FastCGI instances). The load balancer distributes requests to the app servers - gets a responses and sends them back to the clients. Mongrel has worked better for many of us - not because of the protocol difference - because it handles requests better. Ruby-FastCGI is also a web server and has request handling logic - it just speaks FastCGI instead of HTTP. Someone could develop a better Ruby-FastCGI binding which understood FastCGI but handled connections from the reverse-proxy better - but that hasn’t been done yet. And IMO it is a bit pointless - there need not be a special protocol just for communication between load balancers and app servers. ry ---
**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:** [August 11, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/5 "2008-08-11T01:15:19Z")
> Mongrel has worked better for many of us - not because of the protocol > difference - because it handles requests better. Ruby-FastCGI is also > a web server and has request handling logic - it just speaks FastCGI > instead of HTTP. The easier and useful answers are never given on documentation, thanks everybody. I’m just dropping Apache because it’s not memory efficient and these days with my question I’ve searching all about mongrel. There is a new branch of the Ruby language called “Ruby Enterprise Edition” that seems to use enough memory to fit in my VPS. The problem is the server it uses, Apache. For me there is not value to reduce the memory usage of ruby when it is done into a platform that is not memory efficient. Is there an adaptation of mongrel to use ruby enterprise? This is an awesome forum with awesome pals. ---
**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:** [August 11, 2008, 2:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/why-mongrel-with-nginx/145394/6 "2008-08-11T14:01:40Z")
John H. wrote: > The easier and useful answers are never given on documentation, thanks > everybody. > I’m just dropping Apache because it’s not memory efficient and these > days with my question I’ve searching all about mongrel. > There is a new branch of the Ruby language called “Ruby Enterprise > Edition” that seems to use enough memory to fit in my VPS. The problem > is the server it uses, Apache. For me there is not value to reduce the > memory usage of ruby when it is done into a platform that is not memory > efficient. Is there an adaptation of mongrel to use ruby enterprise? > > This is an awesome forum with awesome pals. At the moment Mongrel can’t use the copy-on-write optimizations provided by Ruby Enterprise Edition. As for Apache, it’s possible to tweak it to lower its memory usage to levels comparable to Nginx. The key lies in disabling all modules that you don’t need, and using the worker MPM instead of the default prefork MPM, with settings comparable to Nginx’s. The resulting memory usage is described at [Performance and memory usage comparisons — Ruby Enterprise Edition](http://www.rubyenterpriseedition.com/comparisons.html).