Who is the Simplest Rails hoster?

Rails
21

Rick O. wrote:

I can’t say enough good things about Rails Machine. They have good,
detailed docs on getting you started:

Aye, all-good, unless you’re attempting to deploy from a Windows
machine, at which point it’s nigh impossible to get anything running.
(SVN+SSH on Windows? Yeah, right!)

22

secure your vps (only needed once)

https://support.railsmachine.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=32

five minute rails app deployment

https://support.railsmachine.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=12

I was able to deploy my first Rails Machine app during the Railsday
competition in about 30 minutes. They have some funky deployment
tasks built on top of Capistrano that configures apache and mongrel
for you.

I too am a huge fan of Rails Machine. I had a few questions before
signing up which the guys answered promptly and in detail – always a
good sign.

I signed up, followed the two guides linked above – which are written
so clearly that you just can’t go wrong – and had my first app up in
about 20 minutes. And I had never used Capistrano, Apache or Mongrel
before. Marvellous!

Andy S.

23

The one thing I’d like to say about A2 is don’t be fooled by their
concept of live help. It looks like a great idea and I can’t say that
it isn’t “live” but we have had zero useful help from it. Their
favourite line is that they aren’t allowed to “debug” your code. My
stylesheets stopped working when I uploaded my app. I asked why – “We
are not allowed to debug your code” on further pressing I received the
reply that I didn’t know how to link a stylesheet properly. I ask you -
that’s not the hardest thing to do in rails, is it? I said that I had
not changed anything since moving it from a working app on my system so
it had to be SOMETHING to do with the setup or how their machine
worked. Could they give me a clue. The reply I received. Read the docs.
But the docs suck!!! In my personal opinion A2 sucks, at least their
live “help” is a joke. Just wanted to air that. In the end I found
railshosting.com much better. I have not tried railsplayground.

24

I have been wanting to get a demo version of my app hosted for quite
some time. It is very intimidating. Originally, I tried GoDaddy -
didn’t work and absolutely no assistance (as posted in a different
thread). Then, I was going to use DreamHost. Never quite got around to
that. Now, after this thread, I thought I would give RailsMachine a
shot. My primary OS is Windows. I’ll share my experience with others
when I’m all completed. I did go into the campfire for RailsMachine and
discuss it briefly with one of the moderators and hopefully what I’m
trying to do is possible. They certainly seem willing to help.

That said, I probably do have some hurdles in front of me. Capistrano
wants SSH - so I have downloaded PuTTY (SSH client for Windows) - not
sure if it will work or not, but we will see.

SVN on Windows is no problem at all. Be aware, Capistrano doesn’t
allow access to your repository via file:/// which is how I was
accessing my repository. Also note that I had never used SVN before -
but it is very well documented and was easy to get setup. Don’t like
the command line? TortoiseSVN and RapidSVN may be good things to
download. TortoiseSVN has shell integration and makes SVN pretty
seamless to use with windows explorer.

I had been using Webrick to serve up my app because (a) it is easy and
(b) it mostly met our needs for low number of internal trusted users.
Seeing how RailsMachine uses Mongrel, I thought it would be wise of me
to set it up in my environment. It is EXTREMELY easy for anyone
interested who hasn’t done so yet. Can’t figure out yet if Mongrel
Cluster works on Win32 or not, but if you are using Webrick then you may
as well use Mongrel because it only takes a few minutes to get setup.
You download two gems, install the service and start it…DONE! Nice
thing about Mongrel is that it does run as a service. Of course, for
more advanced setups it looks like Apache (or other web server) gets
involved and for those of us who have pure MS backgrounds this is yet
another “learning curve” to face.

I have read (quickly) the docs on Capistrano. Looks great but I worry
about how well (if at all) it is going to work on Win32. Mostly, the
SSH requirement is my concern and if it will accept the use of Putty or
not.

Everyone knows that deployment isn’t easy and for a Microsoft person
migrating to a non-microsoft environment it is even harder if you don’t
have a solid background with all these various applications. Will my
files completely break when I migrate because of the format difference?
Dunno! Will I get this task done without having to use an intermediary
Linux machine? Dunno! Will my final setup be secure or completely
open? Dunno! Will I have any hair left when I finally get my app
hosted somewhere? Dunno! When I do know, I’ll post something to the
group. If anyone else has already deployed like this then I ask you to
save me some time and share your experience!

Finally, Rails is extremely easy, but all the tools around it are very
intimidating and have a tendency to come at you “all at once”. Perhaps
the linux guru’s and open source developers take it for granted but for
those of us without the linux and general open source background it is
daunting. It’s especially humbling for a guy that could do just about
anything in a pure MS environment to realize he’s just a neophyte in the
linux world. Fortunately, the community is very helpful and willing to
help - and I greatly appreciate that.

Regards,

Michael

Daniel W. [email protected] wrote:

Rick O. wrote:

I can’t say enough good things about Rails Machine. They have good,
detailed docs on getting you started:

Aye, all-good, unless you’re attempting to deploy from a Windows
machine, at which point it’s nigh impossible to get anything running.
(SVN+SSH on Windows? Yeah, right!)

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Get your own web address for just $1.99/1st yr. We’ll help. Yahoo! Small
Business.

25

That said, I probably do have some hurdles in front of me. Capistrano wants
SSH - so I have downloaded PuTTY (SSH client for Windows) - not sure if it
will work or not, but we will see.

Perhaps you should try the net_ssh Ruby gem. If you scroll down to
“Deploying in a win32 environment” on this page:
Peak Obsession – it gives you
some tips if you are on Windows.

26

Oh, and since I am here, any comments on Planet Argon and A Small
Orange?

27

I’ve tried lots of hosts, and hated them all. I hated all of them a
litle bit when I started, and hated them more and more as they became
less and less responsive over time.

Then Ezra recommended RimuHosting, and for once I have a host I don’t
hate. The support crew at Rimu is second to none. And not just for
rails. If you’re a newbie to sysadmin duties, they still treat you like
royalty and do lots of admin tasks for you that other hosts would not be
bothered with.

jp

28

I use Rails Playground, and I would recommend it as well. So I guess
that
like the… 15th vote for Rails Playground?

On 8/23/06, Chris [email protected] wrote:

Chris

–
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

–

  • Mik Mifflin
    “Whether freedom is going to survive at all is in doubt, but we’ve got
    to
    try” - RMS
29

Hi Community,

I wanted to provide an update. I was able to successfully deploy a demo
version of my app to a hosted rails environment. I posted a few days
ago and said I would follow up with my findings â?? so here goes:

1)I ended up using railsplayground. In my original post, I said
railsmachine â?? but this was confusion on my part. The most â??thumbs upâ?
on this thread were for railsplayground. I guess they are similar
enough in naming convention that I got them confused. It wasn’t hard to
figure out when it came to pricing! FYI… Another thumbs up, though
possibly premature, for railsplayground. I can say they have been very
responsive to my needs thus far.
2)Deployment was WAY EASIER than I imagined. I still have my hair left,
I was able to deploy directly from my Win32 machine without a problem
and the biggest two issues I had were as follows: image names (unix is
case sensitive, so I had to fix casing issues so they showed up) and an
incorrect .htaccess file. I was trying to load mod_fastcgi and
railsplayground uses mod_fcgid. I seriously expected more issues than
this and am very pleased with the process.
3)Capistrano â?? All I can say is thank you! No SSH problems (as per a
concern of mine). It took care of everything. It doesn’t support
file:// access to an SVN repository, but it does support the svn://
access method. It makes sense that it doesn’t support file:// for
remote servers because the SVN commands are actually being executed on
the hosted server, not your local server. Therefore, I was able to
deploy from my local repository to the hosted server all from my win32
machine. Poked a small hole in the firewall briefly (for access to the
SVN repository) and all was good. I followed the how-to guide on
railsplayground for capistrano and it worked perfectly per the step by
step example.
4)I needed a few extra gems â?? so I submitted a support ticket and within
minutes the gems were installed.
5)Application works! Will create another thread with a URL to it and
would love any feedback.

Thanks so much to the people on this mailing list for all the helpful
info you post! It is invaluable.

Regards,

Michael