Configuring Mongrel
Firstly, I created a `mongrel_cluster` configuration as per the project’s documentation.
$ cd /var/www/servers/www.oobaloo.co.uk/currentsudo mongrel_rails cluster::configure -e production \-p 8000 -N 3 -c /var/www/servers/www.oobaloo.co.uk/current -a 127.0.0.1 \--user mongrel --group mongrel
That’ll create a `config/mongrel_cluster.yml` file that contains the configuration. That mongrel should `cwd` to `/var/www/servers/www.oobaloo.co.uk/current` before running itself, and that it should create 3 nodes from port 8000 up inclusive.
So, to check it all worked, I then ran
$ sudo mongrel_rails cluster::start$ telnet localhost 8000Trying 127.0.0.1...Connected to localhost.Escape character is ']'.
That showed me the individual servers were up and running, so I then created a mongrel cluster configuration directory, to place configuration files for all my mongrel clustered sites (so far, just this one).
$ sudo mkdir /etc/mongrel_cluster$ sudo ln -s /var/www/servers/www.oobaloo.co.uk/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml \/etc/mongrel_cluster/oobaloo.yml
Now, I can then configure mongrel cluster to launch via a System V init script, so it’ll start (and restart etc.) along with lighty and my other services. Rather nicely, mongrel cluster includes a script.
$ sudo cp /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mongrel_cluster-0.2.0/resources/mongrel_cluster \/etc/init.d$ sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster
I also then need to link that in to the various runtime init directories for my distribution (RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 I believe), so I did the following
$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster /etc/rc0.d/S84mongrel_cluster$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster /etc/rc3.d/S84mongrel_cluster$ sudo ln -s /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster /etc/rc6.d/S84mongrel_cluster
That ensures that mongrel kicks off before Lighttpd does, ready for it to handle proxied requests.
Configuring Lighttpd
Lighty took a little more playing with to get a successful configuration. I still use FastCGI for serving PHP requests (solely for using Mint), but want to proxy any other requests through to my underlying clustered Mongrel nodes.
To do this, I did a little more regular expression trickery as follows in my `Lighttpd.conf`.
fastcgi.server = (".php" => ("mint" => ("socket" => "/tmp/oobaloo-lighttpd-php.socket", "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php", "bin-environment" => ( "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "3", "PHP_FCGI_MAX_REQUESTS" => "200" ) )) )
$HTTP["url"] !~ "/mint.$" { proxy.balance = "fair" proxy.server = ("/" => (( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8000 ), ( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8001 ), ( "host" => "127.0.0.1", "port" => 8002 )))}
That ensures that, by default, `.php` requests will be serviced by the FastCGI server, and anything not matching the `^./mint.$` regular expression (i.e. anything other than mint) will be picked up by the proxy to the 3 clustered Mongrel nodes.
That should tie it all together, so all that’s left to do is
$ sudo /etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster start$ sudo lighttpd start
And hey presto, the server’s up and all seems to be well. I’ve read somewhere that Lighty’s mod proxy isn’t too great right now, but that there’s some new stuff on the way, which appears to be for an upcoming 1.4.12 release. As soon as that’s out looks like I’ll have something else to update!
Until then, looks like I should also look at getting my Typo deploys up using Capistrano as per Geoff’s post, and then get my Capistrano configuration working with Mongrel.