RoR on a VPS

Rails
1

I’m looking for a virtual private server to run a RoR site accessing a
database on a different machine.

This is a small application - basically a form to add records, and a few
summary screens.

What are the minimal requirements for a vps?

Thanks.

2

I’m running on a 160MB VPS with Rimuhosting.com that’s pushing a 500,000
record database on the same machine, and it’s quite responsive. Since
your
DB is on a different machine, I would think that you wouldn’t need as
much
memory as that. It’s more a function of how much traffic you expect the
site
to handle, I suppose. I’m going to get a VPS for a personal site that’s
quite a bit simpler, and I’m planning on getting a 96MB VPS from Rimu
for
that.

And just to prop Rimuhosting, they’ve had excellent support (even when I
managed to put in an rc.d script that froze the system during boot). I
highly recommend them.

Matt

3

I second Rimu. I’m talking back and forth with Peter about my VPS in
almost real-time. These guys are great.

  • Rabbit
4

I third Rimu. I’m no Linux master so I’ve made a few small mistakes
setting up things and they’ve been quite helpful fixing my mistakes.
I’m running the 96MB VPS for my personal site and a few subversion
repositories.
Eric

Rabbit wrote:

record database on the same machine, and it’s quite responsive. Since your
Matt

What are the minimal requirements for a vps?

[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–
Eric G.
http://www.ericgoodwin.com

5

Matt W. wrote:

I’m running on a 160MB VPS with Rimuhosting.com that’s pushing a 500,000
record database on the same machine, and it’s quite responsive. Since
your

Hi Matt,

Can you tell me what are your memory allocations for Postgres? How much
ram do you give to postgres?

Can you put your whole DB in Ram?

I was told that putting a Postgres DB on a VPS (which does not have a
true filesystem) will be slow unless you have a lot of ram to allocate
to your DB. I’m just checking if this is really the case.

Thanks,
Nagita

6

Rimu is great for vps type servers. They are very helpful and
responsive. They are the best Xen based VPS provider I have tried
out of close to 5 others. So yeah they rock.

-Ezra

On Mar 6, 2006, at 2:41 PM, Eric G. wrote:

  • Rabbit

need as much
managed to put in an rc.d script that froze the system during

database on a different machine.
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

–

Eric G.
http://www.ericgoodwin.com

Rails mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster

509-577-7732
[email protected]

7

On Mar 6, 2006, at 3:33 PM, Nagita Ka wrote:

ram do you give to postgres?

If you make sure that the VPS you use is running the Xen VM software
then this is less of a concern. With Xen being a linux kernel module
the VPS’s can get almost direct filesystem access speeds. With other
virtual technologies the filesystem access is horrible.

Cheers-
-Ezra Z.
Yakima Herald-Republic
WebMaster

509-577-7732
[email protected]

8

Nagita Ka wrote:

I’m looking for a virtual private server to run a RoR site accessing a
database on a different machine.

This is a small application - basically a form to add records, and a few
summary screens.

What are the minimal requirements for a vps?

Thanks.

Memory is a good starting point for determining minimal requirements. If
you are not running a database on the VPS, then the amount of RAM you
need is ultimately determined by how many processes (fcgi/mongrel) you
need. A Rails process typically requires ~25mb in “production” mode
(YMMV). If you use script/process/spinner, then add room for another
process. Then add some padding for lighttpd, syslogd, cron, sshd, and
any service monitoring like supervise. Finally, be sure to disable any
running services that you don’t need that might be installed by default.

If you want a real number, start with 96mb and grow from there. For
reference, our servers with 256mb are comfortably running lighty, mysql,
and 3 applications with 2 fcgi processes each. I’m also looking at
configurations involving pgsql, sqlite, and mongrel, but don’t have good
numbers just yet.

Good luck!

Bradley Taylor

Rails Machine
Simplified web application deployment
http://railsmachine.com

9

2006/3/6, bradley taylor [email protected]:

If you want a real number, start with 96mb and grow from there. For
reference, our servers with 256mb are comfortably running lighty, mysql,
and 3 applications with 2 fcgi processes each. I’m also looking at
configurations involving pgsql, sqlite, and mongrel, but don’t have good
numbers just yet.

For another data point, I am running the following:

128 Mb
Running Lighttpd, MySQL 5, supervise, 4 Rails applications on SCGI.

I’m very thight on RAM, but that is partially caused by requiring that
MySQL run with InnoDB. If you don’t need it, just disable it.
That’ll save you loads of RAM. I usually end up with 12 Mb RAM and 8
MB swap free. I should really upgrade to 160 Mb soon.

Bye !