I have an account on a FreeBSD server using apache2, mod_fastcgi and of
course Rails. As apache starts the fastcgi processes, I have no ways of
stopping/restarting them. This seems to pose a problem, for my
modifications in controller classes (actually an addition, a new
controller is born) does not seem to be reflected in the fastcgi
process. That is, my new controller is nonexistent in the process
context. When I tell apache (.htaccess) to use the plain old .cgi
method, all is fine. Does a rails fastcgi process ever notice that it's
code context has changed?
if you modify a file, you have to restart apache by ssh
apachectl -k graceful
fcgi loads everything in memory (models, helpers, controllers…) at start-up.
anyways, it is a bad practice to develop on a live server, you need to develop at home and when everything is tested and bug-free, upload, sync database (migrations) then restart.
Thank you for your help and advice, I think I'll continue development
locally with webrick, then, when it seems ready, upload and ask the
sysadmin to restart apache.