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 on Rails/Mongrel/Ubuntu

I've been using Ubuntu lately and decided to install Ruby on Rails and Mongrel.

$ sudo apt-get install ruby irb rdoc

Or download the source for the latest version (apt-get installs 1.8.4, but the latest source is 1.8.6):

$ tar zxvf ruby-1.8.6.tar.gz
$ cd ruby-1.8.6
$ ./configure 
$ make
$ sudo make install

Once ruby is installed, I typically use Gems if I can.

Download the latest Gems at http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=126 (0.9.4 in this case) and then:

$ tar xzvf rubygems-0.9.4.tgz
$ cd rubygems-0.9.4
$ sudo ruby setup.rb

Install Rails:

sudo gem install rails --include-dependencies

Install Mongrel and Mongrel cluster gem plugin:

sudo gem install mongrel --include-dependencies
sudo gem install mongrel_cluster

Install Apache 2.2

$ tar zxvf httpd-2.2.4.tar.gz
$ cd httpd-2.2.4
$ ./configure \
  --prefix=/usr/local/apache \
  --enable-rewrite \
  --enable-headers \
  --enable-ssl \  
  --enable-proxy \ 
  --with-mpm=prefork
$ make
$ sudo make install

I got this error when running configure:

Configuring Apache Portable Runtime Utility library...

checking for APR-util... yes
configure: error: Cannot use an external APR-util with the bundled APR
make: *** [apache] Error 1

Adding this option fixed the problem:

--with-included-apr 

Running Apache with a single Mongrel Instance

$ mongrel_rails start -p 8000 -e production -d

Add to apache conf (httpd.connf)

ServerName hostname.com
ServerAlias www.hostname.com

ProxyPass / http://www.hostname.com:8000/
ProxyPassReverse / http://www.hostname.com:8000/
ProxyPreserveHost on

Restart Apache and it will forward requests for www.hostname.com on port 80 to Mongrel server running on port 8000.