Here’s a quick guide (written on scratch paper, but now published in this blog, so packages may be newer now) how I got Ruby on Rails and FastCGI for Apache2 running in Redhat Enterprise Linux ES release 4 (Nahant Update 2) on a production Dell PowerEdge server.

Note: This works on my box. So YMMV and use it at your own risk. I’m not responsible nor will troubleshoot your problems if they arise.

Because of its packages are a bit dated and needed newer versions to run my rails applications, this is what I did to get the newer packages installed on this box.

Package dependencies needed to be downloaded from Redhat’s repositories

Update your packages first by: sudo up2date –nox -u on the terminal console.
1) gcc-3.4.4-2 (sudo up2date -i gcc)
2) httpd-2.0.52-19.ent (Apache2)
httpd-devel-2.0.52-19.ent
3) mysql:
mysqlclient10-3.23.58-4.RHEL4.1
mysql-devel-4.1.12-3.RHEL4.1
mysql-4.1.12-3.RHEL4.1
mod_auth_mysql-2.6.1-2.2
libdbi-dbd-mysql-0.6.5-10.RHEL4.1
mysql-server-4.1.12-3.RHEL4.1

1) Install Ruby
a) $ wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/ruby-1.8.3.tar.gz (latest stable at the time of writing)
b) $ tar zxvf ruby-1.8.3.tar.gz
c) $ cd ruby-1.8.3
d) $ sudo ./configure
e) $ make
f) $ sudo make install

To check if ruby compiled and installed correctly, type:
$ ruby -v

If installed correctly, you should see:
ruby 1.8.3 (2005-09-21) [i686-linux]

2) Install RubyGems
a) $ wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/5207/rubygems-0.8.11.tgz
b) $ tar zxvf rubygems-0.8.11.tgz
c) $ cd rubygems-0.8.11
d) $ sudo ruby setup.rb

To check if ruby compiled and installed correctly, type:
$ gem -v

If installed correctly, you should see:
0.8.11

e) $ gem list (prints list of gem packages installed)
f) $ sudo gem update --system (updates your gem package)

3) Install Rails using RubyGems
a) $ gem update
b) $ sudo gem install rails –source http://gems.rubyonrails.com –include-dependencies

To check if ruby compiled and installed correctly, type:
$ rails -v

If installed correctly, you should see:
Rails 1.0.0

4) Install Rails-MySQL
a) $ gem update
b) $ sudo gem install mysql

NOTICE: if you get an error such as this:

$ sudo gem install mysql

 Attempting local installation of 'mysql'
Local gem file not found: mysql*.gem
Attempting remote installation of 'mysql'
Updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (RuntimeError)
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
Gem files will remain installed in /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7 for inspection.
ruby extconf.rb install mysqlnchecking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lm... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lz... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lsocket... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lnsl... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no

Results logged to /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7/gem_make.out

SOLUTION:

$ cd /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.7/
$ ruby extconf.rb –with-mysql-config=/usr/bin/mysql_config
$ gem install mysql

SOURCE: http://ocsforums.com/showthread.php?p=462

6) Install FastCGI
a) wget http://fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
b) tar zxvf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz
c) cd fcgi-2.4.0
d) sudo ./configure && make && make install

7) Install mod_fastcgi for Apache2
a) wget http://fastcgi.com/dist/mod_fastcgi-2.4.2.tar.gz
b) tar zxvf mod_fastcgi-2.4.2.tar.gz
c) cd mod_fastcgi-2.4.2
d) $ cp Makefile.AP2 Makefile
e) edit Makefile from:
top_dir = /usr/local/apache2
to:
top_dir = /usr/lib/httpd (where apache2 is installed)
f) $ make
g) $ sudo make install
h) Add entry to httpd.conf:

LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.so

FastCgiIpcDir /tmp/fcgi_ipc/
AddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi

i) Restart apache2:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/httpd restart
j) In your rails application directory inside public/.htaccess, change:
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /dispatch.cgi?$1 [QSA,L]
to
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /dispatch.fcgi?$1 [QSA,L]
k) Change permissions for user apache.apache:
chmod 755 .htaccess
chmod 755 dispatch.fcgi
l) Had to change dispatch.fcgi from:
#!/usr/bin/ruby1.8
to
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby

My Apache2 Benchmark with FastCGI:

 underpaidlovemonki@amazonjungle.info:~$ ab -n 100 -c 1020 http://underpaidlovemonki.amazonjungle.info
This is ApacheBench, Version 2.0.41-dev < $Revision: 1.141 $> apache-2.0
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Copyright (c) 1998-2002 The Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/

Benchmarking underpaidlovemonki.amazonjungle.info (be patient)…..done

Server Software:        Apache
Server Hostname:        underpaidlovemonki.amazonjungle.info
Server Port:            80

Document Path:          /
Document Length:        256 bytes

Concurrency Level:      1020
Time taken for tests:   0.127892 seconds
Complete requests:      100
Failed requests:        0
Write errors:           0
Total transferred:      52520 bytes
HTML transferred:       26624 bytes
Requests per second:    781.91 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request:       1304.498 [ms] (mean)
Time per request:       1.279 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate:          398.77 [Kbytes/sec] received

Connection Times (ms)
min  mean[+/-sd] median   max
Connect:       56   56   1.0     57      58
Processing:    11   37  16.0     36      63
Waiting:       10   35  16.0     34      62
Total:         67   94  15.9     93     119
WARNING: The median and mean for the initial connection time are not within a normal deviation
These results are probably not that reliable.

Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50%     93
66%    104
75%    109
80%    111
90%    116
95%    118
98%    119
99%    119
100%    119 (longest request) 

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2006 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Programming, Rails, Technology, UnderpaidLoveMonki. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.