Media Temple Tames the Beast – New Ruby on Rails Hosting Service with Mongrel

KreeK

I was testing the 64MB container, I forget where I read it but I think a mongrel instance wants to use around 15MB+ depending on the traffic, so you could safely run two rails apps in one 64MB container (and yes they run in the 64MB space).

My VPS (dv) server with Media Temple has 256MB and I’m running three rails apps on there (with one mongrel instance each) + 30 other PHP sites and it’s all golden (knock on wood).

KreeK

This comes from the beta forum so I can’t 100% gurantee it still works. Whenever it says CODE that’s the start of a code block (I can’t copy their CSS on here). Baked in might have been a bit strong but here’s how to do it.

1. Apply Capistrano to your application.

CODE
cd
cap -A .

This creates the Capistrano rake tasks file in lib/tasks and a sample deploy.rb recipe in config.

2. Download the (gs) deploy.rb recipe.

CODE
wget http://gems.mediatemple.net/deploy.rb –output-document config/deploy.rb

3. Customize the config/deploy.rb recipe.

CODE
set :site, “14″

Set this to your site number. Your site number is right after the ’s’ in your access domain, so s14.gridserver.com’s site number is 14.

CODE
set :application, “app1″

This is the name of your application. Use a short, recognizable name with no whitespace. This is the name that will be used to identify this application when using the mtr command (mtr start ).

CODE
set :webpath, “app1.example.com”

This is the web location of your application. This is used when adding your application to your container.

CODE
set :domain, “example.com”
set :user, “serveradmin%example.com”
set :password, “xxxxxxxx”

These are your credentials for logging into your (gs) service. You must use your “serveradmin@domain.com” user.

CODE
set :repository, “svn+ssh://#{user}@#{domain}/home/#{site}/data/repo/app1/trunk”

This is the subversion repository where your application lives. The above example is how to specify one on your (gs), and included in the recipe are examples of other repository locations. Do not use a file:/// style url, as these are known to not work with Capistrano. Also, if your subversion password is different than your (gs) password, specify it with the “:svn_password” setting.

4. Customize additional hooks in the recipe.

CODE
#task :after_update_code, :roles => :app do
# put(File.read(’deploy/database.yml.mt’), “#{release_path}/config/database.yml”, :mode => 0444)
#end

Uncommenting this will upload a database.yml.mt file after your code is checked out. This is one way of deploying your production configuration. Of course, this will fail if there is no deploy/database.yml.mt file.

CODE
task :after_symlink, :roles => :app do
run “#{mtr} -u #{user} -p #{password} generate_htaccess #{application}”
end

This demonstrates calling an mtr command from within Capistrano. This particular one makes sure that the .htaccess file in your application has the right mod_rewrite rules.

5. Add the application.

CODE
cap mt_add
cap setup

This adds the application to your (gs) container and sets up the initial Capistrano directories. Applications are placed in /home/##/containers/rails/.

6. Prepare for the initial migration.

a. Create a database through the Control Panel.
b. Configure your database.yml (or database.yml.mt) with the proper database credentials.

CODE
cap update_code
cap symlink

Once these commands are done, your application is ready for it’s initial migration. The code is checked out and the ‘current’ symlink points to the latest revision.

7. Migrate

CODE
cap migrate

This just runs ‘rake migrate’ on your database.

8. Create symlink from your html folder.

CODE
cap mt_create_link

This uses your application’s webpath and creates a symlink in your site’s html directory that points to the public directory in your application’s current revision.

9. Start the application

CODE
cap mt_start

Congratulations. Your application is now running. Now to deploy new changes, it’s as easy as:

CODE
cap deploy

Note: If your application does not use a database, then after step 5 above, running ‘cap deploy’ is all that is needed.

KreeK

That’s a good question, so good that I don’t know the answer

Are you getting an error when you test locally? It might only be installed on the (mt) side, then is included (required) in the same way that Rmagick is (ie you don’t need a plug-in or whatever it’s just always there).

If all else fails call ‘em up 1.877.578.4000, actually an email might be better as it would be routed to a Rails expert.

Galen

Hi John. From your local machine:

% gem list –source=http://gems.mediatemple.net/
…
mt-capistrano (0.0.2)
Capistrano tasks to deploy Ruby on Rails applications on a (mt) Grid
Server.
…
% gem install mt-capistrano –source=http://gems.mediatemple.net/
…

I hope that helps.

KreeK

A client of mine had trouble using the coupon the other day I think it might have expired.

Tal Lifschitz

How come the coupon doesn’t work? Im fairly interested in switching, do they stick you on a server with “unlimited bandwidth” which is actually, just many people stacked on the same server?

Thanks,
Tal Lifschitz
http://www.cashrichmoney.com

adi

hosting…