Ruby on Rails Hosting for Your New RoR Super App

by Melvin Ram

I have been hosting my two apps with SliceHost for the last 9 months and can’t complain about anything. THEY ARE AWESOME!

One tiny thing that I do wish they did differently was to offer linux-newbies (like me) an option for a ready-made server that I could use within minutes of signing up. I really don’t find tinkering with Ubuntu fun.

Today I came across something that makes that possible: http://blog.fiveruns.com/2008/9/24/rails-automation-at-slicehost. It’s like being Neo in the Matrix. You can take on 1000′s of agents with no sweat.

Mark Andersons’s script let me create a development server in under 3 minutes. It doesn’t look like it does anything for security so I wouldn’t use it as a production server as it is… but it’s great for playing around with your app on a live server while still in development.

Here’s the steps I followed:

  • Create a new slice (sign-up or create new slice in your slice manager if you’re an existing client)
  • Log into your server via ssh (using putty or whatever you prefer)
  • Type:  nano serversetup
  • Copy/Paste the code from Mark’s Script
  • Delete the first line where it says “ssh root@fiveruns.slicehost.com ‘”
  • Delete the last line where it has a ‘
  • Save the file (on your keyboard, press Ctrl + O  followed by Enter )
  • Exit Nano (on your keyboard, press Ctrl + X)
  • Type: sudo sh serversetup
  • Watch a bunch of code fly through on the screen and pretend you’re reading the Matrix
  • Type in a password for MySQL when asked & retype.
  • Watch more code fly by and feel smart
  • When done, open up FireFox and go to the IP of your new slice
  • Say “Holy Crap!” when you see that your app is running.
There are a few other things I’m going to add to Mark’s script and submit to him such as added git, firewall security and other things when I get the time but go n enjoy your new slice!

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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

sidsavara October 2, 2008 at 2:47 am

Cool! Any experience with Heroku? Have heard very good things about htem too, not sure if their service is similar/comparable.

Melvin Ram October 2, 2008 at 2:53 am

Yea I’ve got an account with Heroku. It’s not really comparable.

I prefer SliceHost since I get full control of the account via SSH. this means I can set up background processes for doing tasks at scheduled times (like sending emails, processing credit cards, etc.) All that is not currently possible with Heroku.

Heroku would be nice if your site gained massive traffic overnight since they are based on the Amazon’s EC2. I assume it would grow automagically and deal with all the new traffic.

But if you know what you’re doing, SliceHost can help you scale up quickly as well… especially with Mark’s script, but I’m guessing there is no way to do it automagically.

matiu October 2, 2008 at 6:37 am

The matrix is with you..

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