Rails Setup With Mongrel and Apache mod_proxy

I set up Apache to proxy requests to the 3 Mongrel servers providing blogging, wiki, and todo list functionality.

This setup is for local access only.

• Create mongrel system group and user


• Place Rails applications in /var/www/mongrel


• chown -R mongrel:mongrel /var/www/mongrel


• Create mongrel initscript: /etc/init.d/mongrel and symlink to /etc/rc2.d/S99mongrel

#!/bin/bash
case $1 in
    start)
        port="12000" 
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do            cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;           echo " * Starting $appdir on port $port." 
           mongrel_rails start -d -e production -p $port                --user mongrel --group mongrel -a 127.0.0.1 ;            port=`echo "$port + 1" | bc`
        done
    ;;
    stop)
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do            cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;           echo -n " * Stopping $appdir..." 
           mongrel_rails stop ;         done
    ;;
    restart)
        for appdir in `ls /var/www/mongrel`; do             cd /var/www/mongrel/$appdir ;            echo -n " * Restarting $appdir..." 
            mongrel_rails restart ;         done
     ;;
esac

• Start mongrel service and test


• Add entries for 127.0.0.3 blog.localhost, 127.0.0.4 wiki.localhost, etc. to /etc/hosts


• Enable mod_proxy (sudo a2enmod proxy)


• Allow local proxy requests by modifying the /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/proxy.conf (Allow 127.0.0.0/255.255.255.0)


• Add Listen 127.0.0.3:80, etc. to /etc/apache2/ports.conf


• Create VirtualHosts entries for the servers in a new sites-enabled file (I used proxy)

NameVirtualHost wiki.localhost:80
<VirtualHost wiki.localhost:80>
    <Directory "/">
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    ProxyPass / http://localhost:12000/
</VirtualHost>

• Restart Apache