Rails Forum - Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum - Choosing a host

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (learc83) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:46:26 +0000

I use Hosting Rails http://www.hostingrails.com/

Runs great for the ecommerce site I built. The thing I like the most is that they don't kill fcgi after 5 min of inactivity like most shared hosts do. So it doesn't take 20 sec to load up a site when no one has visited it for a while.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (dylanfm) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 04:06:51 +0000

Ah I'm sorted for a host at the moment, a few months ago I bought a year's MT gridserver hosting - mostly for the opportunity to try rails, use both php 4 & 5 and have postgres databases too.
I'm using osx, the command line is something I am starting to enjoy, but I'm a visual person - I need GUIs and stuff, moving away from that is tricky but good.
I do have a compaq server lying on the floor at home, maybe I can set that up with ubuntu and get the feel of it in a more relaxed situation.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (bngu) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:13:30 +0000

Based on subsequent raves about Slicehost, I am now looking at it seriously. I know that they have recently deployed FC6, just wondering if anyone has written up instructions on getting it setup with all the usual suspects, Rails, Ruby, SVN, MySQL, etc. I found a good article on Ubuntu setup though, hoping I can find one on FC6. Thanks.

P/S: There is currently a 21 days waiting period for 256MB slice.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (pimpmaster) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:45:15 +0000

dylanfm,

No matter what host you pick, do your best to get comfortable managing a Linux machine remotely through SSH. The commandline is your best friend. If you are new to Linux, I would recommend you try out the Ubuntu distro as it is probably the easest one to use. You can work the APT-GET command for one-line installation of basic software (Apache, MySQL, etc)

You should also know about the deprec gem as it can automate the installation of most of the things you need. There is a free peepcode screencast which deals with this very subject.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (dylanfm) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:24:59 +0000

Slightly off topic, but how does one get more comfortable with setting up and managing something like the slicehost accounts you speak of?
I know the answer always revolves around practice - but where do I head? What is the right direction so that I am not wasting my time and energy in the wrong directions(s)?

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (nicksnels) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 12:42:41 +0000

Also check out Rails Hosting Info for a comparison of different Rails hosting companies. Also if you have a comment about any of these companies, please post a review about them. This way it becomes a bit easier for others to choose a good host. Thanks.

Kind regards,

Nick

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (danger) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 06:48:18 +0000

This is most of what you need:
http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/docs/mongrel_cluster.html

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (xilo32) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 06:11:26 +0000

Hey Ryan,

Do you know of any articles/tutorials/guides on how to go about adding another Mongrel Cluster and making everything tie together?

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (ryanb) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:41:09 +0000

While its theoretically possible to have multiple Rails sites on a shared host, I wouldn't want to try it. IMO, hosting one small Rails site on a shared host account is about as much as it can handle. The problem is a shared host doesn't have enough resources to spare which Rails requires - particularly memory. And the more Rails sites you have, the more memory it will take up.

You could either go with VPS, or just make a new shared account for each site. I prefer VPS.

As for Slicehost, I think the lowest bracket can handle 3 mongrel instances without a problem, so you could have 3 small rails sites on there without too much hassle. If one site gets too busy you could upgrade to the next plan and add a mongrel cluster to handle the load.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (kgosser) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 16:03:44 +0000

I have a quick question:

If I have a few different sites, which are all very small, that use different domain names, do I have to get a VPS account?

I'm looking at the Level 1 plan at Rails Playground... but I want to make sure that I can fun a few different sites.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (pimpmaster) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 10:20:10 +0000

+1 vote for Slicehost.

If you are not scared to get your hands dirty with Sysadmin stuff, that is. They offer great prices, decent speed and helpful folks on their IRC channel

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (ryanb) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 05:12:27 +0000

I just signed up with Slicehost a couple weeks ago and have been extremely happy. I really beleive it is the way to go for Rails hosting because you get the benefits of a VPS for the price of a shared host (almost).

The only catch is you have to be comfortable setting up your own server. Although it is more difficult, it gives you a lot more flexibility because you aren't limited to what the host has installed and set up.

Oh yeah, check out Geoffrey Grosenbach's hosting guide.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (bngu) — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 02:46:31 +0000

Late to the party I am but boy, Site5 has been a dud for me. I have been trying to reach sales to ask some questions before signing up for their $5/month deal but nada, never heard back from them since I left my phone number last week plus a follow up email yesterday. If this is the way they treat customer lbefore I sign up, I shudder to think what the service is like after I sign up. Also, Site5 is stuck in MySQL 4.x land with no clear timeline for migrating to MySQL 5, that's one of my major concern with Site5 and now the lack of response.

Oh well, I am leaning towards Dreamhost now, will see how they respond.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (aceofspades) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 02:32:19 +0000

the thing is tortoise that for most people a regular host with RoR support will suffice. Unless you develop or run run a a massive large-scale website of massive proportions regular hosts will be fine. Most people don't develop off a remote server (unless you like only using a SSH text editor and not be able to use an IDE and waiting to upload everything every five seconds). So anyways what I'm saying is that although you, tortoise might need a dedicated rails plan, it would be overkill for most people and they won't be able to run regular programs like forums and have good email.

Rails is a GREAT framework but tat doesn't mean just because you like rails doesn't mean you are a "fraud" if you use PHP or CGI programs (lol like this forum). Every thing has it's strengths. Right now rails is mostly a solution for custom programming (like PHP was at first) and it only has 2 popular programs, mephisto and typo. Rails is by far the best framework for custom programming that is worthy of use in production servers (unlike the PHP frameworks which are at best good for playing around in and using for your own site).

It is quite evident that Rails is going somewhere. It has the same life cycle as PHP. It is just exploding as and people are just like, "OMG, so don't have to reinvent the wheel!"

Anyways on top of all this Rails is a great name and it sounds good when you say "lets put this project on rails" or board the rails. Can you say any thing cool like that with PHP or ASP. Even Perl and Ruby are good names.

Re: Choosing a host

dummy@example.com (tortoise) — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 01:54:52 +0000

I just want to put my two cents in and say I've been very happy with railsplayground.com. Excellent customer service. I was having some trouble with capistrano and SSH on their standard plan so they just immediately and without hesitation upped me to their guru plan.

Granted, upping me to guru was probably less headache than dealing with my problem But still, I've been very happy with them.