I'ts not a (db-)model, not controller - so is it a lib?

Hi!

I'm starting a test spike for a small Rails project, that doesn't have any database backend. It's a kind of a (Debian Linux) system administration utility like webmin that collects and displays system informations, modifies config files at different locations and runs system tasks like the installation of Debian packages.

I'm not sure yet, if Rails is the right tool for, but that's what I want to figure out with a test spike. Even if I don't need any of the ActiveRecord stuff, ActionController, the rhtml-template's, Ajax-support and so on seem to be useful enought to give Rails a try.

At this point I managed to make the unit tests work without a database and have coded some simple controllers. But as it now becomes a little bit more complex, a few questions came up:

1. I'm not using a database, so whenever I use some kind of model class, I simply don't derive it from ActiveRecord. Such a model e.g. is DebianPackage, which holds package information that were retrieved from the Debian system. The question now is, does this class still belongs to app/model/ ? or should non-DB backed models always go to lib/ ?

2. I have some classes that do stuff like retrieving cpu load info from the system. These classes are some kind of service objects, not models or controllers. Should they be put into lib/ ore somewhere else?

3. If I put the service object classes in lib/, where should the tests for it go? Am I free to simply put them into test/ or test/services and create a rake task for it?

bye,

Tobias