No one said it would be easy

Elliot bemoans the fact that hosting a Ruby on Rails application on shared or virtual hosting is too hard, and I can attest to this.

I’ve mentioned the issues I’ve had with Typo many times, and although Mephisto is better the box is still working much harder than it should be. Rails may be a great framework for development, but hosting the results is different story all together.

Like Elliot I also have a couple of internal applications that run quite happily, but they are running on dedicated (albeit low-end) boxes – just like the big boys do. I suspect that both of these would fail if I tried to move them to shared or virtual hosting.

Breaking up is hard to do

This is the bit where I should point out all the good things about my blog engine of choice – Typo – before explaining to it that it’s not Typo’s fault, things just aren’t working out.

Stuff that.

Typo is good, but it is bloated and keeps dying on my server for no reason and I’ve had enough. Other RoR apps are ticking over quite nicely on this box, so why does Typo have an issue?

Sorry Typo, it’s not me – it’s you. Pack your bags and sling your hook.

Now to start trawling the classifieds to find a new blog engine before I succumb to temptation and write my own.

(This is a roundabout way of say that this site has been ** recently and I’m finally going to do something about it.)

Outgrowing my server

I’ve been running a Linode supplied UML virtual server for the best part of two years now. I have been extremely happy with it, but I’m now repeatedly running into performance problems with it, and things will only get worse. Basically the problem is Ruby on Rails, and more specifically the Typo weblog software. Ditching RoR is not an option because I host more than one application (with more to come) on it, and whilst I could ditch Typo for something lighter (but still RoR based) I don’t want to – even though that decision is mainly based on inertia. However I need to do something because occasionally my server will be brought to its knees and I get sick of sorting it out, especially as I host other sites on this server. Although I could switch to some managed RoR hosting, my preference to to host my own because I although I don’t like solving problems, I do like causing them!

As I see it, I’ve got the following options:

Before I make a final decision, has anyone got any suggestions/advice (other than ditch Rails)?

Deployment requires consideration

complains that deploying a Rails application is a sticking point for most:

…and he’s absolutely right. If I didn’t run my own server, I’d probably have ditched RoR by now. The only problem is what else would I have gone with?

Sure RoR has it’s fair share of unique problems – although I believe the benefits you gain far outweigh these issues – but anything except middle of the road PHP and vanilla HTML will have their own problems. Want to run ASP.NET? You either need Windows hosting (£££) or fight with mod_mono. PHP5? Not all hosts have switched to it, and you might be limited with libraries/versions etc. Want to use Postgresql instead of MySQL? You can poke holes in any language/platform/framework, and all of them have their own workarounds and solutions.

Deployment is part of the bigger picture, and one that often gets overlooked during development (especially for smaller webapps). If you’re going to pick an up-and-coming technology like RoR then you need to consider deployment issues. It’s not going to work with your generic hosting provider, and even if they do offer Rails support then you’ve still got the problems that come with sharing a server. If you’re lucky enough to get one with Rails and decent performance then you’re still restricted to their versions.

As far as I’m concerned, running your own server is the only way to go. For the (small) premium you pay to get a UML server over a virtual host, the freedom you get is more than worth it. Of course not everyone has the knowledge/skills or desire to run their own box, so there will always be a niche for companies like RailsMachine, EngineYard and Planet Argon and it’s up to them to streamline deployment for their customers.

So what if you want freedom of your own server but not the hassle of running it? Well maybe there’s a business opportunity there…

Daemonizing Mongrel

is the current darling of the Ruby on Rails world, and for a very good reason – it is an excellent server for your Rails applications. Recently I switched to using Mongrel behind Apache running mod_proxy and I’ve had no complaints with it.

Before anyone points it out, yes there were some issues with this server recently but they were caused by mod_mono hogging all the memory, and not Mongrel/Rails. Once I disabled Mono normality was restored.

I did have one minor niggle though. After restarting my server a couple of times during the aforementioned Mono problems I had to restart Mongrel manually. I knew there was a better way to do it, but I didn’t know how. Now I do…

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