Rails 2.3.4 now available

Please note that Rails 2.3.4 is also now available from the dropdowns when you place your order!

Also, our default / recommended Rails install  has been changed to Apache with mod_rails aka Phusion Passenger.

As always, you can add any custom plugins you’d like us to install into the notes field when you place your order – and we’ll get it done for you.

j

[UPDATE - Karmic is here - and in the dropdowns! - j]

…And you can have the beta installed on your very own Libre Hosting VM -

Just order any Ubuntu-based configuration, and put “Karmic Prerelease” in the “Notes” field when you place your order!

j

Development Version

We are proud to announce that we now support and can install the latest trunk-version (0.9) of Satchmo, installed from Mercurial (aka “hg” - get it?!).

Since it’s installed directly from the VCS, and symlinked into the python path, this allows for updates to the source tree anytime – in other words, instant upgrades (and downgrade, if a problem is encountered!) anytime (depending on your VCS).

Django, and other plugins, are installed this same way, as always – we have done it this way since 2007.

Here is a quick intro on how it’s done – just indicate you want us to install Satchmo in the “notes” field when you place your order, and we’ll get it done for you.

j

All our WordPress instances have been upgraded to the latest, current, secure version, 2.8.4. In addition, all new WordPress instances purchased and deployed from now on will be 2.8.4 or greater.

Here is the announcement from Matt:

WordPress 2.8.4: Security Release

We did this immediately upon leaning of the security vulnerability.

To our knowledge, none of our existing customers have been affected.

If you have not yet  logged in to your Admin interface since the upgrade, you may get a “Database upgrade” button, just press it and it should complete successfully in a few seconds.

Let us know if you have any questions or issues.

j

Apache Redux

In keeping with the new, recommended Django deployment method of mod_wsgi with Apache , we have migrated our internal processes as well as deployed multiple  new systems this way – and from this point forward, this is how Django (current, 1.1+) will be deployed by default.

We also still fully support the mod_python deployment method, and will be happy to work with you to set up your custom environment, whatever it may be.

Please note that nginx, Lighttpd, and of course Apache with mod_python are also all still available on request.

Just put your request in the “Notes” field when you place your order and we’ll get it done for you.

j

Motivation

So, after numerous issues with Mongrel and Mongrel Cluster, as reported in our last Rails-related post, and after following all the buzz, we decided to give Phusion Passenger a try – we were not disappointed!

Don’t get us wrong, we still prefer Mongrel as our development server, and there are instances where Mongrel Cluster makes lots of sense (load balancing, for example), but we wanted to explore the reputed simplicity of Passenger -

..And we wanted to multiplex multiple websites onto one Apache instance, simply and easily!

Simplicity

So, we followed the gem-basedinstallation  instructions here: http://www.modrails.com/install.html

After installation with Gem, the nicely-written text mode installer guided us through the install process for the ‘dev’ packages, and then compiled itself from source – Very nice! A polished touch!

Done!

So after one global include in /etc/apache2/conf.d/passenger:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.4
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

We were able to use multiple files in ’sites-available’ of the format:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName www.yourhost.com
    DocumentRoot /somewhere/public
    #                       ^-- be sure to point to 'public' within your rails app!
</VirtualHost>

To easily achieve multiple rails apps, with disparate domains, served by the single instance, reasonably painlessly – Note that you do have to have the domains point to the correct IP address, of course

The Verdict

Our verdict: All in all pretty painless and professional – and the benchmarks seem to support great performance -

So, if you want us to install Passenger for you, just indicate this in the “Notes” field when you place your order, and we’ll get it done for you.

We will likely soon make it the default, if no objections are heard from you, our customers, in the near future.

Notes

Please note that we can do this on top of either Turnkey rails, or our regular Rails instance.

Rails 2.3.3 now available

Please note that Rails 2.3.3 is also now available from the dropdowns when you place your order!

Nginx

Note also that Phusion Passenger also offers an Nginx version – we will be happy to install the highly acclaimed Nginx web server, along with the corresponding version of Phusion Passenger, via custom quote – Please contact us today regarding getting this set up for you!

j

Ruby on Rails 2.3.2

We are pleased to announce the availability of the Ruby on Rails 2.3 stack (currently 2.3.2, as of this writing).

We have opted to try out the excellent (Ubuntu-based) Turnkey Linux software appliance for Rails 2.3, rather than using our own installation and provisioning scripts, and so far we have had excellent results.

(We have also had good results with the Turnkey Drupal appliance as well).

Things we liked about the Turnkey appliance:

• Preconfigured SSL / SSH support – all keys & certs  generated during installation, set up w/Apache
• Security-related updates applied daily
• Webmin preinstalled and precofigured for Apache, MySql, etc
• RubyGems package manager installed the way we recommend – with Ruby managed by apt, but Gems installed from source.
• Just as we say: “Use gem for managing Rails gems, and apt for everything else.”

Things we had trouble with or had to fix:

• The 3-node mongrel cluster was cumbersome to administer, and difficult to modify for new rails apps from the “Example” rails app preinstalled by Turnkey.  Either No example app, or a more flexible way to add new apps would have been better.
• No option for, or mention of Phusion Passenger.
• SQLite and git were not installed
• Our regular VMs do a reconfigure tzdata on first startup, so you don’t forget to set your timsezone correctly

Additional notes and packages we installed:

• mc – Midnight Commander – tried-n-true text mode dual-pane file manager
• file – Without this, obscure dependencies remain unmet for builds, etc
• sqlite3, libsqlite3-ruby - should be installed, even if MySql is the default db (Postgres might be nice too)
• git-core should be installed, given the percentage if Rails plugins that use it, plus gems can install from git, but only if it’s installed!
• lynx, other viewers for mc – important for reading docs in console

/etc/init.d/mongrel_cluster stop

didn’t work, and had to manually stop the clusters on ports 8000, 8001, & 8002

Had to manually do things like:

mkdir -p tmp/pids

and

chown -R www-data:www-data *

on certain directories, etc, to make certain core components work, that shouldn’t have been necessary.

Anyway, these considerations are relatively minor, and are all addressed now, and working well – just select “Rails 2.3″  from the dropdown when you place your order -

Plus, look for a future update where we integrate Phusion Passeneger with your VM – Let us know what you prefer, please enter which deployment option you prefer for Rails in the comments on this post, and why -

• Mongrel, Mongrel cluster
• Phusion Passenger/mod_rails
• mod_wsgi
• Apache
• nginx
• Lighttpd
• etc

…and we’ll listen!

j

Get Sugared

We are pleased to announce the latest SugarCRM is now available for hosting in your own private vMachine (VPS), or we can manage it for you (managed services), here at LibreHosting.

As such, you can of course have an unlimited number of users, with no per-user fees.

It looks good!

Here is a screenshot of the front page, with various dashboard-style widgets (Sugar calls them “Dashlets” that you can drag around, position how you want, and add and remove – Nice!

The theme shown is “Shred”, which is one of 20+ themes, which are quite nicely done – try it out on our SugarCRM Sandbox!

Remember, if you’re an Open Source project owner, and you’d like to have live demo (aka sandbox) services for your project, we can provide them – and it’s free for Open Source!

More Themes

Other SugarCRM themes, shown below, are “Final Frontier” (Astronomy theme), “Links” (a Golf theme), and my favorite, “Golden Gate (foggy SF theme .

Final Frontier

Links

Golden Gate

Usability, Overall Impression

Sugar makes a distinction between “Employees” and “Users”, which can be disconcerting at first, until you get used to it – it’s done so that Employees don’t have to have a Sugar login; but in practice it makes adding new users a lot more clicky then it otherwise would need to be..

Overall, though, it’s extremely polished and professional – and at least as capable as the Siebel implementations I’ve seen in the early 2000’s..

More comments as we use it further.

j

We are pleased to announce that WordPress 2.7.1 as well as WordPress_mu are now available for hosting, to the general public.

Although we have hosted dozens of WP blogs for various clients and customers in the past, this is the first time that accelerated deployment on a custom and individual basis is available through our builds system.

We can host:

1. An individual root-access vMachine for you with WPMU and unlimited* blogs and subdomains, which will have a single unified Admin interface (and database) for all blogs.
2. An individual root-access vMachine for you with the latest WordPress and Debian’s one-copy-multiple-instances configuration, with easy admin for all your blogs, and individual admin interfaces (and databases) for each Blog. Again, blogs are unlimited*
3. A shared-hosting WordPress blog, on our main WP vMachine, always maintained to the latest WP version.

The first two options are available under our regular vMachine root-access hosting plans, and the third is $100/year with one domain name included. Contact us today for more information.

All our WP instances come with:

• Your choice of 110+ themes (and counting)
• Fulll comment-spam protection with Akismet
• Many useful plugins, including:
• For Photoblogging: YAPB (Yet Another PhotoBlog)
• For Videos: the FlowPlayer plugin to integrate the FlowPlayer on your blog, integrated with a media server for your videos

We also have used and installed various other plugins on request, including WP-Forum, WP-Polls, and WP-eCommerce. (We also wrote the TrustCommerce payment gateway for WP-eCommerce in PHP).

As always, if you’d like a theme or plugin installed with your order, just place the name and link to it in the “notes” field when you place your order, and we’ll get it done for you.

j

*The number of blogs is unlimited, just be mindful of your bandwidth allocation chosen with your plan

Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope is now available for ordering through our eCommerce engine.

UPDATED: Released version now installed.
And it looks great!

Note that as is our usual policy, we had been installing the beta / RC for a couple of weeks prior to the formal launch / release – this is our usual policy.

And remember you can always ask for an earlier beta or alpha to install on request, as well.

Next up for our techs: Rails 2.3!

…We jumped the gun – The prerelease of Ubuntu 9.04 is now available for installation –

We’ll set it up for you with the beta, now, and simply upgrade it when it’s released -

j