DreamHost PS : Now with more Mongrel

February 4, 2008 on 4:11 pm | In New Features by Dallas Kashuba |

Mongrel Puppy

Starting today, every DreamHost PS and DreamHost dedicated server comes equipped with the Mongrel ruby application server. Mongrel is the preferred method of deploying Ruby on Rails applications and is typically more robust than FastCGI-based deployments. Now we’re giving you both options to choose from so you can use the one that works best for your application!

We recently posted a rant about how Ruby on Rails is not easy enough for people to use, and this is one way we’re working to fix that situation. Now anyone can use Mongrel with very little server know-how. It only takes a few minutes!

Mongrel sits behind an Apache running as a proxy server, and our web control panel now streamlines that process and handles all the details for you. You just upload your application anywhere under your web-enabled user and set up the Mongrel application server, and in a few minutes your site will be up and running. For more information, check out our Mongrel wiki article.

Note that this feature is only available for DreamHost PS or DreamHost dedicated due to its resource requirements. Due to extremely high demand our inventory of DreamHost PS servers is low but we expect to get more in soon. If you would like to get on the waiting list, you can do so on our DreamHost PS provisioning page.

14 Comments

  1. 1

    No comments?!

    I wish there was a little more detail on this feature. I don’t want to experiment with my “in production” site.

    What should I put into the ‘path to application’ field? Relative? Absolute? What should I do if I’m moving a FCGI site to Mongrel?

    Comment by Arron — February 4, 2008 #

  2. 2

    My experience with PS is that I need to spend about $50/month to sustain a site with 5000 hits per day.

    Comment by PicVault — February 5, 2008 #

  3. 3

    ‘path to application’ is relative to the home directory of the user you choose next to it.

    To move from FastCGI to Mongrel you might just be able to configure a Mongrel application at the root of the domain (just domain.com/) with the application path pointing to the current location of the rails app. The proxy server should override the FastCGI and make it use Mongrel instead.

    Comment by Dallas Kashuba — February 5, 2008 #

  4. 4

    On the FedEX thing… I’ve noticed the same stuff, mostly with them just delaying the packages though (see my website link for my full rant). Truly, I am not a fan of FedEX and much prefer UPS. From my experiences, I’ve not seen the same kind of problems with brown.

    So, I’d recommend telling FedEX how you feel with your wallet. Refuse to do business with a carrier that pulls crap like that.

    Just my 2 cents.

    Comment by Charlie Lehardy — February 5, 2008 #

  5. 5

    #3: Whew. OK, apparently THAT doesn’t work. =D

    Comment by Arron — February 5, 2008 #

  6. 6

    @Arron : What happened?

    Comment by Dallas Kashuba — February 5, 2008 #

  7. 7

    @Dallas

    Didn’t work for anything but the root of my website. Trying to hit a URL like http://fearlessblogging.com/post/view/299 returned a “Bad Gateway” error after about 2 minutes.

    Removed the proxy and restarted my private server, except I think I restarted my PS too soon, before the changes took effect, because the proxy was still active — another variation on “Bad Gateway” — but I couldn’t find it under the Mongrel & Proxy options.

    I resolved it by creating a new Mongrel proxy, waiting for it to take effect, then deleting the Mongrel proxy. Another 30 seconds later it started automatically using FCGI again.

    Total down-time because of the experiment was about ~15 minutes. Hehe, thankfully, low traffic site.

    Comment by Arron — February 5, 2008 #

  8. 8

    Maybe a good thing.
    DH is wrong sometimes.

    Comment by neekey — February 6, 2008 #

  9. 9

    @Arron

    Ok, I think I’ve fixed the issue you were having, but you probably will want to test with a testing application next time. Sorry it didn’t work right the first time!

    Comment by Dallas Kashuba — February 7, 2008 #

  10. 10

    Any chance we’ll see apache load-balancing now, so we can use mongrel-cluster? How many real rails apps are only using one mongrel?

    Comment by Trey — February 7, 2008 #

  11. 11

    I’ve submitted a ticket, nonetheless my Private Server web root is now missing after the mongrel update.

    See my email address for the domain.

    You guys are awesome. Though I have to admit, I’m a little freaked out right now.

    Comment by Micheal — February 7, 2008 #

  12. 12

    Just an update to my last post.

    The Support Team at DH is awesome. They got me back up and running in no time at all.

    Gotta love you guys.

    Comment by Micheal — February 7, 2008 #

  13. 13

    Sidebar: Wordpress

    You really otta blog about that Easy Mode thing. (Already did? *shrug* So bill me again. *snort* Maybe I can get a 2nd refund! *duck and run*)

    That’s pretty nifty … you host a nice WPMU style install for individuals, but individuals host the dB … right clever.

    Did you and Matt’s crew talk that through?

    clever, ayup

    –bentrem

    p.s. “race” conditions with billing? I was programming back when “race” was a lot more common than it is now i.e. a lot more programmers encountered it. You can be forgiven. Optional, but yaa, you could be forgiven.

    Comment by Ben Tremblay — February 7, 2008 #

  14. 14

    Very cool, about time too.

    Comment by MM23 — February 10, 2008 #

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