Deploying with Passenger

As of version 2.0, Phusion Passenger supports Rack (and thus Merb) through a Rack config.ru file placed at the root of an app:

# config.ru
require 'rubygems'
 
# Uncomment if your app uses bundled gems
#gems_dir = File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'gems'))
#Gem.clear_paths
#$BUNDLE = true
#Gem.path.unshift(gems_dir)
 
require 'merb-core'
 
Merb::Config.setup(:merb_root   => File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__)),
                   :environment => ENV['RACK_ENV'])
Merb.environment = "production" #Merb::Config[:environment]
Merb.root = Merb::Config[:merb_root]
Merb::BootLoader.run
 
# Uncomment if your app is mounted at a suburi
#if prefix = ::Merb::Config[:path_prefix]
#  use Merb::Rack::PathPrefix, prefix
#end
 
run Merb::Rack::Application.new

Here's a better config.ru if you're bundling your gems. It uses your bundled merb-core instead.

require 'rubygems'
if File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "bin", "common.rb")
  require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "bin", "common")
end
require 'merb-core'
 
Merb::Config.setup(:merb_root   => ".",
                   :environment => ENV['RACK_ENV'])
Merb.environment = Merb::Config[:environment]
Merb.root = Merb::Config[:merb_root]
Merb::BootLoader.run
 
run Merb::Rack::Application.new

Check out the Passenger User Guide to get up and running with Passenger or jump right in:

$ gem install passenger
$ passenger-install-apache2-module

Passenger works well as a development server and many are using it as such. Here's how to use it in development for a Merb app:

• Add an alias to 127.0.0.1 for your app in your hosts file (usually at /etc/hosts). We'll call our app @myfunkysite.local@.
• Follow the instructions in the user guide for installing Passenger and adding a VirtualHost entry for your application.
• Add the following to your Apache config file (after your “LoadModule …mod_passenger.so” directive):

RackEnv development

When you point your browser to http://myfunkysite.local, Passenger will boot the Merb app by loading the config.ru file. Passenger will also kill the app after a default timeout so you're not wasting memory.

127.0.0.1 localhost myfunkysite.local

# ...snip...

# These paths will vary for your installation. Passenger will give them to you at the end of its installation.
LoadModule passenger_module /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/passenger-1.9.0/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/passenger-1.9.0
PassengerRuby /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby

RackEnv development

# Only needed if getting 403 Forbidden errors on static assets:
<Directory "/Users/JohnDoe/apps">
  Order allow,deny
  Allow from all
</Directory>

<VirtualHost *:80>                  
  ServerName myfunkysite.local            
  DocumentRoot /Users/JohnDoe/apps/myfunkysite/public
  ErrorLog /Users/JohnDoe/apps/myfunkysite/log/error.log
</VirtualHost>

Most users put the Passenger config and vhost directives into separate files and use the @Include@ directive to pull them into Apache, but that is left as an exercise for the reader.

$ touch tmp/restart.txt

You'll have to create the tmp dir in the root of your app if it doesn't exist.

Since Passenger runs your app headlessly calls to @debugger@ in your code no longer do anything—except freeze your app. Does anyone feel up to investigating LiveConsole integration?

For a static content controller, I found I had to delete merb.fcgi file from public/ folder, otherwise the static controller's action would route to the merb.fcgi file instead of their prospective erb view.

/public/.htaccess will route everything to /public/merb.fcgi by default, so delete the .htaccess file