Comments on: Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/ Jamie Flournoy's Software Development Blog Fri, 19 Mar 2010 02:13:16 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: links for 2008-09-09 « Amy G. Dala http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-10201 links for 2008-09-09 « Amy G. Dala Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:32:19 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-10201 [...] Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps at Pervasive Code (tags: ruby rails apache) [...] [...] Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps at Pervasive Code (tags: ruby rails apache) [...]

]]> By: Markov Blog » Blog Archive » Trying out mod_rails http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-8396 Markov Blog » Blog Archive » Trying out mod_rails Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:01:58 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-8396 [...] swap area hard, so it seems that it takes a little more memory than a pair of mongrels. Although I already read about that. I suppose it should be fine with 512MB with a light load. And RailsMaxPoolSize is quite [...] [...] swap area hard, so it seems that it takes a little more memory than a pair of mongrels. Although I already read about that. I suppose it should be fine with 512MB with a light load. And RailsMaxPoolSize is quite [...]

]]> By: Dreamhost and mod_rails for your tiny Rails application | alex brie . net http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-7467 Dreamhost and mod_rails for your tiny Rails application | alex brie . net Thu, 29 May 2008 03:48:48 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-7467 [...] dedicated or VPS, mongrel is still the right choice being slightly faster and using less RAM (see this for reference). What’s the best part about mod_rails ? Dreamhost included it on their [...] [...] dedicated or VPS, mongrel is still the right choice being slightly faster and using less RAM (see this for reference). What’s the best part about mod_rails ? Dreamhost included it on their [...]

]]> By: » Ditching Mongrel for mod_rails » My geek blog - Brian McQuay http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-7087 » Ditching Mongrel for mod_rails » My geek blog - Brian McQuay Sun, 25 May 2008 08:27:11 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-7087 [...] in the past but everything sent me back to Mongrel. Until today of course when I came across Jamie Flournoy’s blog about [...] [...] in the past but everything sent me back to Mongrel. Until today of course when I came across Jamie Flournoy’s blog about [...]

]]> By: links for 2008-05-25 « Mike Does Tech http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-7051 links for 2008-05-25 « Mike Does Tech Sun, 25 May 2008 00:33:02 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-7051 [...] Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps at Pervasive Code (tags: mod_rails rubyonrails deployment apache) [...] [...] Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps at Pervasive Code (tags: mod_rails rubyonrails deployment apache) [...]

]]> By: Tom Copeland http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-6940 Tom Copeland Fri, 23 May 2008 22:43:13 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-6940 For the the big win is not having to manage the mongrel cluster port range, not having to worry about a couple slow file uploads/downloads locking up all the mongrels, not having to worry about slow S3 or Salesforce calls locking up all the mongrels, etc., etc. Count me onboard the mod_rails bandwagon... it's making my cluster management skills obsolete and I still love it :-) For the the big win is not having to manage the mongrel cluster port range, not having to worry about a couple slow file uploads/downloads locking up all the mongrels, not having to worry about slow S3 or Salesforce calls locking up all the mongrels, etc., etc. Count me onboard the mod_rails bandwagon… it’s making my cluster management skills obsolete and I still love it :-)

]]> By: 28 mod_rails / Passenger Resources To Help You Deploy Rails Applications Faster http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-6931 28 mod_rails / Passenger Resources To Help You Deploy Rails Applications Faster Fri, 23 May 2008 20:36:05 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-6931 [...] & Benchmarks Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps - A blog post that takes a deep look into the motivation behind Passenger and where it fits in [...] [...] & Benchmarks Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps – A blog post that takes a deep look into the motivation behind Passenger and where it fits in [...]

]]> By: bensie http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-5943 bensie Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:20:45 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-5943 What types of things within the rails application itself might take a long time to load it up? This particular app is a rails 1.2.6 app with just a few plugins... I'm going to try it with different apps now to see if that's the issue. What types of things within the rails application itself might take a long time to load it up? This particular app is a rails 1.2.6 app with just a few plugins…

I’m going to try it with different apps now to see if that’s the issue.

]]> By: This Week in Ruby (April 21, 2008) | Zen and the Art of Programming http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-5936 This Week in Ruby (April 21, 2008) | Zen and the Art of Programming Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:20:34 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-5936 [...] The first tutorials for mod_rails have started to pop up, in particular there was this guide for setting up Passenger on SliceHost with Ubuntu 7.10 and the more discursive Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps. [...] [...] The first tutorials for mod_rails have started to pop up, in particular there was this guide for setting up Passenger on SliceHost with Ubuntu 7.10 and the more discursive Why mod_rails is great for light-duty Rails apps. [...]

]]> By: Jamie Flournoy http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/comment-page-1/#comment-5894 Jamie Flournoy Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:02:08 +0000 http://www.pervasivecode.com/blog/2008/04/14/why-mod_rails-is-a-really-good-thing-for-light-duty-ruby-on-rails/#comment-5894 Hmm. If I reboot my VPS (thereby clearing the disk cache) and then load a page served by mod_rails, it takes 7.122s to load the whole page. That includes all the startup time of the mod_rails spawners as well. Maybe the dom0 disk cache is involved, but it has a very limited amount of memory so I doubt it. Or maybe my VPS is on much faster hardware than bensie's VPS, and it's just gonna take that long any time the app really starts without the benefit of any disk caching. I guess the way to test that theory is to reboot the VMWare virtual server and try a cold start, and see how long that takes. If disk performance is really the bottleneck, a quick and dirty Rails startup accelerator could be added that would work more or less like the 'readahead' program that comes with CentOS 5.1: cd /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems ; \ find . -type f -iname \*.rb -and \( \ -iwholename ./actionpack\* -or \ -iwholename ./actionmailer\* -or \ -iwholename ./activerecord\* -or \ -iwholename ./activesupport\* -or \ -iwholename ./activeresource\* \) \ -exec cat {} > /dev/null \; Hmm. If I reboot my VPS (thereby clearing the disk cache) and then load a page served by mod_rails, it takes 7.122s to load the whole page. That includes all the startup time of the mod_rails spawners as well.

Maybe the dom0 disk cache is involved, but it has a very limited amount of memory so I doubt it. Or maybe my VPS is on much faster hardware than bensie’s VPS, and it’s just gonna take that long any time the app really starts without the benefit of any disk caching.

I guess the way to test that theory is to reboot the VMWare virtual server and try a cold start, and see how long that takes.

If disk performance is really the bottleneck, a quick and dirty Rails startup accelerator could be added that would work more or less like the ‘readahead’ program that comes with CentOS 5.1:

cd /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems ; \
find . -type f -iname \*.rb -and \( \
-iwholename ./actionpack\* -or \
-iwholename ./actionmailer\* -or \
-iwholename ./activerecord\* -or \
-iwholename ./activesupport\* -or \
-iwholename ./activeresource\* \) \
-exec cat {} > /dev/null \;

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