Hi, I am trying to install/configure Passenger on a dedicated centos server. I have installed passenger successfully, but i am having to much troubles trying to configure it with my dedicated server, I have read/saw your screencasts, documentation, buyed peepcode.com screencasts about this issue etc, but still can not get the thing working, hope you give me some help. After passenger installation i pasted all the lines into my httpd.conf file as the installation indicates, but well i have some problems here: First of all, my dedicated server uses cpanel, this means that i can not just open directly the http.donf file to make changes because cPanel rebuilds the file on every update or account creation by compiling from its userdata files. So any VirtualHost created will be lost(in fcat any change that i have made will be lost). To create a custom VirtualHost, in my case i need to create a new domain account account located in /var/cpanel/userdata/username folder, not just, copy-paste the lines that passenger installation gaves to me, at this point i dont know how to configure this virtualhost thing??? besides this, the screencast of phusion site, tells that i have to configure de etc/ hosts file but in my case i am not configuring a local passenger install, so the /ect/hosts could not be configured equal as the screencast does...or yes? So where/how i have to paste/configure my passenger installation in order to work with a dedicated server??? i have tryed a lot of variations, none of them works, even i have talked with some irc, and they told me that i have just to follow the passenger installation instructions(it means copy-pasted the lines in http.conf) but this this is not working, am i doing something wrong, any idea/advice? Regards, Shirkavand
If it's a "dedicated server", you should be able to configure it any way you want -- so why don't you turn off this "cpanel" thing, which sounds like total crap, and edit your conf files as needed?
I just installed passenger/mod_rails on a system yesterday for the first time, and it took about 5 minutes. It sounds like your problem is with cpanel, not passenger.
Just sayin' ... 
Hi,
I just installed passenger/mod_rails on a system yesterday for the first time, and it took about 5 minutes. It sounds like your problem is with cpanel, not passenger.
This system that you have installed passenger, was a dedicated server? if yes, dou you just follow the passenger installation instructions(i.e copy-paste the lines into http.conf), and just with that it works properly for you? did not configure any etc/hosts file or anything else? how do you access the rails app, something like "http://www.mydomain.com" where "www.mydomain.com" is the name of the virtual host you put in in the htp.conf? the name of the virtualhost must be the same as the domain name that i buyed?
Regards,
Mohammed
This system that you have installed passenger, was a dedicated server?
Maybe you should define /exactly/ what you mean by "dedicated server".
I was installing on my OS X system -- just another *nix box. A server is a
server is a server. Because you installed server software on it
Maybe you should do a test install on another system where you aren't wrestling with "cpanel" to validate the basic process.
if yes, dou you just follow the passenger installation instructions(i.e copy-paste the lines into http.conf), and just with that it works properly for you?
Yep.
the name of the virtualhost must be the same as the domain name that i buyed?
Well, yeah, that's basic name-based virtual hosting
HTH,
H*
What company did you get your dedicated server from? Most dedicated servers has the ability to be installed without a control panel and most of the time it is easier to do custom installs like pasanger/ mongrel or other without a control panel like cpanel. cpanel is a great tool if all you want is a few static pages (that is MY take btw.)
When you got your domain you set that up in DNS to point to your dedicated servers ip.
www.your-domain.com -> A record -> 1.1.1.1 (dedicated server ip)
Then you have to configure Apache to listen for www.your-domain.com if you have virtualhosts setup. (If you only have one that will be the default host and should work anywho... )
You should be able to see entries in the apache logs if you hit the ip address.
Btw did you install wget on the server (yum install wget) and/or links (yum install links) this will let you "test" from the local server to see if everything is working fine there before testing outside...
AND THE BIG QUESTION! IS THE CPANEL FIREWALL OPEN???
Hi,
Maybe you should define /exactly/ what you mean by "dedicated server"
Well i mean that i have full root access to all accounts on the server. And that i can install, delete, update etc in any way i want to. Only my apps are installed and running , i have all the power over the server, this is what i mean with "dedicated server"
I was installing on my OS X system -- just another *nix box. A server is a
server is a server. Because you installed server software on it
I already installed passenger on my MAC, and it works, but that is obius, because my MAC:
1- Is a local eviroment, that means that all the installations are donde like root, and more important with a very low security configuration(my mac is a testing eviroment not a production one)
2- As a local machine, is a testing eviroment, so it does not have any
high securiity, firewalls, special users and all that stuff that a
real production server has and that usually make things harder to
install and configure, for a simple example i connect in my local
machine to mysql using user root with no password, but in a real
producction eviroment this can not be done, so i have not to deal with
this stuff when installing something in my *nix local machine :),
thats why passenger was easy to install
Maybe you should do a test install on another system where you aren't wrestling with "cpanel" to validate the basic process.
the cpanel stuff was just an example, i am not sure if it is the cpanel who causes the problem, i was just giving an example that in a production eviroment exists a lot of "extra" thing that are configurated different and that may cause tha passenger install not so easy to do, maybe cpanel, maybe some chmod problems, maybe some lost symbolic links problems etc
What company did you get your dedicated server from
www.jaguarpc.com
Most dedicated
servers has the ability to be installed without a control panel and most of the time it is easier to do custom installs like pasanger/ mongrel or other without a control panel like cpanel
of course, as i said before i have installed passenger already, the problem i got is that i can not configure it properly using just the instructions that passenger installing process gives
did you install wget on the server (yum install wget) and/or links (yum install links) this will let you "test" from the local server to see if everything is working fine there before testing outside
i have installed many software using yum, and wget was already installed when i buyed the dedicaded server, and both work just fine
AND THE BIG QUESTION! IS THE CPANEL FIREWALL OPEN???
I am not sure, but is this important for passenger to work properly?
Thanks for your support,
Regards
Every control panel system has a way of adding custom configurations to certain accounts.
For plesk, that would be by creating a new file in the /var/www/vhosts/domain.com/conf/ directory named vhost.conf. You can add extra directives there or override existing ones. After configuring the file, you can just do “/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng --reconfigure-vhost --vhost-name=domain.com”
A simple google search brings up the following for cpanel (http://www.cpanel.net/support/docs/ea/ea3/customdirectives.html)):
Like the main portion of httpd.conf, the VirtualHost containers also provide the ability to add customizations using Include files. At this time there is no graphical interface for creating and managing VirtualHost includes, so they must be manipulated manually. The include directory structure is not created automatically, but uses the following file structure: • Individual VirtualHost /usr/local/apache/conf/userdata/(ssl|std)/(1|2) ///.conf
cPanel/WHM and Plesk are tools to make it easier on your end-user to manage their accounts. You as a server admin however should know everything about it: where it puts it files, which built-in services it uses and how it uses them, … Frankly, if you order cPanel or Plesk because you don’t have a clue on how to configure a server yourself, you’re better off looking for a managed dedicated server hosting and let those people handle it for you instead.
Best regards
Peter De Berdt
Well i mean that i have full root access to all accounts on the server. And that i can install, delete, update etc in any way i want to. Only my apps are installed and running , i have all the power over the server, this is what i mean with "dedicated server"
Good, then you should be able to kill this cpanel thing if it's causing
you problems, eh?
I already installed passenger on my MAC, and it works, but that is obius, because my MAC:
2- As a local machine, is a testing eviroment, so it does not have any high securiity, firewalls, special users and all that stuff that a real production server has and that usually make things harder to install and configure
Nonsense. If anything I find desktop systems more problematic to install stuff on because they typically lack developer libraries, etc.
OK, so this morning, on my own (RHEL, RackSpace) dedicated server I've:
1) compiled and installed ruby 2) installed rubygems 3) gem install rails 4) compiled and installed apache httpd 2.2.9 5) gem install passenger 6) run the passenger install program 7) pasted the appropriate LoadModule yadda yadda statements into httpd.conf
I had one initial problem, with not explicitly specifying the location of apr:
-bash-2.05b$ ./bin/apachectl -t httpd: Syntax error on line 71 of /usr/local/apache-httpd-2.2.9/conf/httpd.conf: API module structure 'passenger_module' in file /usr/local/ruby-1.8.6/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so is garbled - expected signature 41503232 but saw 41503230 - perhaps this is not an Apache module DSO, or was compiled for a different Apache version? -bash-2.05b$ export APR_CONFIG=/usr/local/apache-httpd-2.2.9/bin/apr-1-config -bash-2.05b$ sudo passenger-install-apache2-module
:: but once past that, it just works.
HTH,
Hi Mr Peter De Bredt,
Frankly, if you order cPanel or Plesk because you don't have a clue on how to configure a server yourself
I have not ordered cpanel, in fact i have not buyed the dedicated server. But yes, i am not an Senior Server Administrator. in fact i am not using cpanel for nothing i always use ssh terminal. When i talked about cpanel is because my hosting solutions told me that they does not recommend that i modify the http.conf manually from a ssh terminal because the cpanel overwrite every change that i made manually, so i was asking for some other ideas about the issue.
A simple google search brings up the following for cpanel
Yes i did a lot of simples googling an found a lot of ways to install the thing, any of it does not followed the way that passenger documentation explains( some other do), some need sttuf/configuration like you finded at:
some others tells me that i have to follow this:
the passenger screencast/documentation explains other way........ www.peepcode.com screencast about passenger installation explains a whole different way to make the thing work on a shared hosting solution so that means that it is not as simple as copy-paste in a real production server, thas way i am asking for help/ideas/comments on how to installed on a "dedicated/shared/dedicated managed server solution", just to know-learn and help others
So,
1) does anybody installed pasenger over a dedicated server? 2) just with a copy-paste of the lines that the installer gives to the httpd.conf make passenger work?
Have a nice day.
Shirkavand
Hi Hassan,
Thank you for your reply and help. Ok. Gonna check again my installation, maybe i did somehting wrong. So i am going to check again to see if i have better luck!. I will let you know what happenned.
Regards
Hi Mr Hassan,
In my dedicated server i've: (obiusly RoR and mongrel already installed & running fine):
1- gem install passenger 2- passenger-install-apache2-module
here i got 3 errors:
a- "Apache 2 development headers were not detected by the script." To fixed this i just create a symbolic link as follows: /usr/sbin/ apxs' to '/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs
b- "error: Compiling and installing Apache 2 module...cd /usr/lib/ruby/ gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3 rake clean apache2................" I fixed this by: yum install apr-devel
c- "/usr/local/apache/include/apr_file_info.h:200: error: 'apr_ino_t' does not name a type ..." i fixed this by: export APR_CONFIG=/usr/local/apache/bin/apr-1-config
After fixing that 3 errors i re-run the installer by: passenger-install-apache2-module and installation was successfull.
3- i edited my http.conf file located at: pico /usr/local/apache/conf/ httpd.conf 4- i added the lines and save, so my httpd.conf file look like: ... ... ... LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/ passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3 PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby
<VirtualHost 69.73.160.174:80 *> ServerName www.mydomain.com DocumentRoot /home/user/public_html/railsapp/public </VirtualHost>
5-then i restart apeche by using: /etc/init.d/httpd restart
6- I opened a browser and put the same url a puted in the httpd.conf file, this is:
at this point i should see my "railsapp" rails application, but what i see is my normal web root.
Do i have any misconfiguration/error/ something???
Regards,
Mohammed
It's a good idea to use bin/apachectl -t and bin/apachectl -S to check your config file syntax.
I didn't bother setting up a virtual host (yet), but on my installation I changed both the DocumentRoot directive and the primary Directory directive to both point to the public folder of my rails app. I believe those need to be in sync.
Besides that, have you looked at your httpd log files?
Hi Hassan,
It's a good idea to use bin/apachectl -t and bin/apachectl -S to check your config file syntax.
I've executed bin/apachectl -t and bin/apachectl -S both commands give me "Syntax OK" and no errors.
on my installation I changed both the DocumentRoot directive and the primary Directory directive to both point to the public folder of my rails app. I believe those need to be in sync
Well in my server i can not do this thing because i have lots of rails apps there, so i need to access all of them via apache, so i want to do a simple "http"//www.mydomain.com/railsapp1" or "http"// www.mydomain.com/railsapp2" and so on..
Besides that, have you looked at your httpd log files?
yes i ave checked the error_log file located at /usr/local/apache/logs and there are some normal errors like some required images, php etc that does not exists, but nothing about my railsapp or this virtualhost
If you have some free time, can you test the virtualhost configuration
over your dedicated server? to see if you get the same problem that i
do or if you not. Maybe the real problem is something about the
virtualhost...i dont know just guessing.....
regards
If you have some free time, can you test the virtualhost configuration over your dedicated server? to see if you get the same problem that i do or if you not. Maybe the real problem is something about the virtualhost...i dont know just guessing.....
OK, I created 2 VirtualHost entries, this one (minus the standard stuff -- ServerName, logging, etc.):
<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot "/path/to/rails_app/public"
LoadModule passenger_module /usr/local/ruby-1.8.6/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so PassengerRoot /usr/local/ruby-1.8.6/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3 PassengerRuby /usr/local/ruby-1.8.6/bin/ruby
</VirtualHost>
:: plus a static VirtualHost with a different DocumentRoot.
Both vhosts worked as expected -- the first forwards to my Rails app, the second to the static instance.
Well in my server i can not do this thing because i have lots of rails apps there, so i need to access all of them via apache, so i want to do a simple "http"//www.mydomain.com/railsapp1" or "http"// www.mydomain.com/railsapp2" and so on..
Well, er, mmm. That looks like a different problem. I'm not sure that
mod_rails is intended to address that use case. Not that that means
much, since I'm new to it as well, but...
At the very least, your scenario looks like it would require mod_proxy and/or mod_rewrite. The simplest configuration that strikes me -- not tested yet! -- would be to set up your virtual hosts as e.g.
railsapp1.example.com railsapp2.example.com
and then use mod_proxy to forward requests for example.com/railsapp1/ appropriately (and transparently).
HTH!
Hi,
My apologize for this late reply, i was a little bit busy since my last reply. Ok finally fixed out the problem. The problem was that i pasted the "LoadModule ..." lines that passenger installation gives, at the very end of my httpd.conf file(as the tutorial etc etc saids so), the only thing i made was pasting the lines at the top of the httpd.conf file, and it worked just wonderfull!.
Such a strange problem, don't you think?
Thanks for your support.
Cheers
