Plasticx Blog

Here is my Gentoo init.d script for a mongrel cluster running a Rails app.

/etc/init.d/mongrel

#!/sbin/runscript

depend() {
        need net
        use apache2 mysql
        after apache2 mysql
}

start() {
        ebegin "Starting mongrels"
        start-stop-daemon --start --chuid $USER --exec $MONGREL \
        -- cluster::start -C $MONGREL_CONF
        eend $?
}

stop() {
        ebegin "Stopping mongrels"
        start-stop-daemon --start --chuid $USER --exec $MONGREL \
        -- cluster::stop -C $MONGREL_CONF
        eend $?
}

status() {
        ebegin "mongrel status"
        start-stop-daemon --start --chuid $USER --exec $MONGREL \
        -- cluster::status -C $MONGREL_CONF
        eend $?
}

/etc/conf.d/mongrel

Gentoo will load script variables for an init.d script from the /etc/conf.d directory where the conf file is the same name is the init.d file. Thus in /etc/conf.d/mongrel

USER=deployer:deployer
MONGREL=/usr/bin/mongrel_rails
MONGREL_CONF=/var/www/mysite/rails_app/shared/mongrel_cluster.conf

Some things to point out:

• this integrates perfectly with Gentoo’s rc-status command
• the mongrel cluster will be running as the user/group defined in USER (i.e. safer non-root)
• mongrel_cluster.conf is a standard mongrel cluster configuration that you would have generated with Capistrano, Vlad or written by hand
• start-stop-daemon command is executed in —start mode because all of the commands ‘start’ ‘stop’ ‘restart’ ‘status’ are delegated to the mongrel_rails executable
• because you are running the commands as a non-root user your Capistrano or Vlad tasks (rake vlad:start_app) will still work from your remote shell (you’re not running as root through ssh right!?)

Evan Weaver wrote a SysV init.d setup for daemonizing Camping apps on a *Nix system and documents it in rv, a tool for luxurious camping

I used that blog entry as a reference to build one called RV2 that is a little bit more Gentoo specific. Here are my scripts and directory layout

This is the combined experience from my previous entry Typo 4.0 + Apache2 + MySQL + Gentoo and Chapter 27 Deployment and Production / Agile Web Development with Rails and Capistrano: Automating Application Deployment

What I am illustrating here is how to maintain a Typo blog. What I mean by maintain is that you are creating your own
source repository for your instance of Typo. This will allow you to patch the application with fixes and your own
modifications. You will also integrate Capistrano into your repository so that you deploy your updates with ease.
Also, I show you my implementation of a Mongrel init.d script on Gentoo that will ensure Mongrel starts back up on
server reboot.