Nginx, Mongrel, Merb

Quick notes on installing and configuring nginx and running with existing mongrel and Merb app on my MacBookPro.

1) Download and install PCRE (if needed)
http://www.pcre.org/
ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/
ftp://ftp.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/software/programming/pcre/pcre-7.8.tar.gz

$ ./configure
$ ./make
$ ./make install

2) Download and install nginx:
http://nginx.net/
The latest stable version is nginx-0.6.32, the change log.
http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.6.32.tar.gz

$ ./configure
$ ./make
$ ./make install

# Edit nginx.conf file (/usr/local/nginx/conf/nginx.conf)
# Note - based on Ezra's blog post (see notes below)

user  nobody;
worker_processes  2;

error_log  logs/error.log notice;
pid        logs/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections  1024;
}

http {
    include       mime.types;
    #include       conf/mime.types;
    default_type  application/octet-stream;

    # no sendfile on OSX uncomment 
    #this if your on linux or bsd
    #sendfile        on;
    tcp_nopush     on;

    keepalive_timeout  65;
    tcp_nodelay        on;

    upstream mongrel {
        server 127.0.0.1:4000;
        server 127.0.0.1:4001;
        server 127.0.0.1:4002;
    }

    gzip on;
    gzip_min_length  1100;
    gzip_buffers     4 8k;
    gzip_types       text/plain;

    server {
        listen       80;
        #server_name  localhost;
        root /Users/dsparlingimbp/git/dougsparlingdotcom/public;

        access_log  off;
        rewrite_log on;

        location ~ ^/$ {
          if (-f /index.html){
            rewrite (.*) /index.html last;
          }
           proxy_pass  http://mongrel;
        }

        location / {
          if (!-f $request_filename.html) {
            proxy_pass  http://mongrel;
          }
          rewrite (.*) $1.html last;
        }

        location ~ .html {
           root /Users/dsparlingimbp/git/dougsparlingdotcom/public;
        }

           location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|doc|xls|exe|pdf|ppt|txt|tar|mid|midi|wav|bmp|rtf|js|mov)$ {
          root /Users/dsparlingimbp/git/dougsparlingdotcom/public;
        }

        location / {
            proxy_pass  http://mongrel;
            proxy_redirect     off;
            proxy_set_header   Host             $host;
            proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP        $remote_addr;
            proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For  $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        }

    }
}

4) Commands for starting and stopping nginx
start: sudo /usr/local/nginx/sbin/nginx
stop: sudo kill `cat /usr/local/nginx/logs/nginx.pid`

5) Start Mongrel cluster (I'm using 3 Mongrels):
$ merb -c 3
or
$ merb -p 4000 -c 3

6) Resources
http://brainspl.at/articles/2006/08/23/nginx-my-new-favorite-front-end-for-mongrel-cluster
http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/5/13/ubuntu-hardy-installing-nginx-from-source
http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/5/13/ubuntu-hardy-adding-an-nginx-init-script
http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-setup-page-1
http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-setup-page-2
http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2179
http://merb.rubyforge.org/files/README.html

Ruby - Randomize arrays and strings

Randomize the elements of an array:

random_array = my_array.sort_by{rand}

Randomize a string (jumble a given word):

jumbled_word = word.split("").sort_by{rand}.join

Updating to RubyGems 1.3.0 on Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4

When attempting to stall final release of Merb 1.0, I got an error message that I needed RubyGems version >=1.3.0:

ERROR:  Error installing merb:
 merb-core requires RubyGems version >= 1.3.

So I did the usual "gem update --system" but got an error:

$ sudo gem update --system
Password:
Updating RubyGems
Updating rubygems-update
Successfully installed rubygems-update-1.3.0
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (NameError)
    undefined local variable or method `remote_gemspecs' for #
$ gem --version
1.2.0

I found that you have to run a second set of instructions:

$ sudo gem install rubygems-update
Successfully installed rubygems-update-1.3.0
1 gem installed
$ sudo update_rubygems 
Installing RubyGems 1.3.0

More info here:
http://rails.wincent.com/wiki/Updating_to_RubyGems_1.3.0_on_Mac_OS_X_Leopard_10.5.4