Ruby on Rails Hosting & DNS Management
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John Mewhort
Nov 16, 2009, 7:04:15 PM11/16/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
Have any of you heard of www.Heroku.com to host a Ruby App with? Heroku recommends you use www.zerigo.com for DNS management. I was FINALLY able to get my sample app up using this service but I wanted to know if anyone uses them already or has had any prior experience.
Since I'm a complete newbie... "I've been tossing darts in the dark" to get something up and running. I finally gave up on Media Temple after spending many hours of complete frustration with the setup. I'm sure there's an easy way to do it...I just never figured it out myself. Anyway, let me know what you guys think about using Heroku & Zerigo to deploy an app. Am I on the right track??? Yes, no or maybe so???
Either way, I'm STOKED to get started developing something..the setup almost made me say "Uncle"!
In case anyone wants to see my first go at things - here's the link - www.mydealmanager.com 
Not much but at least it's up and running!
Not much but at least it's up and running! 
Chris Rhoden
Nov 16, 2009, 7:07:40 PM11/16/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
I love heroku, I have never ised the other thing you mentioned, but there are tons of free DNS services out there.
Let us know if you run into any snares!
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Michael Buckbee
Nov 16, 2009, 8:01:03 PM11/16/09
to 757.rb
I had significant difficulties getting things setup on Media Temple as
well. They have some proprietary methods of splitting everything up
into different "grids" or semi-virtual servers or some such craziness.
In any case the end point was that you couldn't actually Google for a
fix or sort something out yourself so you had to rely on their support
(which I would describe as well meaning, but somewhat ineffective).
It's great that Heroku worked for you and if that's what you need, by
all means stick with it. However, I think that the ability to start
with a bare linux server and configure Ruby + Rails + MySQL (or
whatever) on it is a very important skill to have. What's even crazier
to me is that it was both easier and cheaper to setup and configure
everything myself than almost any alternative.
I recommend checking out Rackspace's Cloud Servers http://www.rackspacecloud.com/
- aka Cheaper Slicehost - they are very inexpensive for what you get
and you have full root access to your instances. We're running dozens
of these for our company and they're great.
- Mike
On Nov 16, 7:04 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have any of you heard ofwww.Heroku.comto host a Ruby App with? Heroku
> recommends you usewww.zerigo.comfor DNS management. I was FINALLY able to
> running!
>
> 338.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> B60.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> 35C.png
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> 360.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
well. They have some proprietary methods of splitting everything up
into different "grids" or semi-virtual servers or some such craziness.
In any case the end point was that you couldn't actually Google for a
fix or sort something out yourself so you had to rely on their support
(which I would describe as well meaning, but somewhat ineffective).
It's great that Heroku worked for you and if that's what you need, by
all means stick with it. However, I think that the ability to start
with a bare linux server and configure Ruby + Rails + MySQL (or
whatever) on it is a very important skill to have. What's even crazier
to me is that it was both easier and cheaper to setup and configure
everything myself than almost any alternative.
I recommend checking out Rackspace's Cloud Servers http://www.rackspacecloud.com/
- aka Cheaper Slicehost - they are very inexpensive for what you get
and you have full root access to your instances. We're running dozens
of these for our company and they're great.
- Mike
On Nov 16, 7:04 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Have any of you heard ofwww.Heroku.comto host a Ruby App with? Heroku
> recommends you usewww.zerigo.comfor DNS management. I was FINALLY able to
> get my sample app up using this service but I wanted to know if anyone uses
> them already or has had any prior experience.
>
> Since I'm a complete newbie... "I've been tossing darts in the dark" to get
> something up and running. I finally gave up on Media Temple after spending
> many hours of complete frustration with the setup. I'm sure there's an easy
> way to do it...I just never figured it out myself. Anyway, let me know what
> you guys think about using Heroku & Zerigo to deploy an app. Am I on the
> right track??? Yes, no or maybe so???
>
> Either way, I'm STOKED to get started developing something..the setup almost
> made me say "Uncle"!
>
> In case anyone wants to see my first go at things - here's the link -www.mydealmanager.com [?] [?][?] [?] [?] Not much but at least it's up and
> them already or has had any prior experience.
>
> Since I'm a complete newbie... "I've been tossing darts in the dark" to get
> something up and running. I finally gave up on Media Temple after spending
> many hours of complete frustration with the setup. I'm sure there's an easy
> way to do it...I just never figured it out myself. Anyway, let me know what
> you guys think about using Heroku & Zerigo to deploy an app. Am I on the
> right track??? Yes, no or maybe so???
>
> Either way, I'm STOKED to get started developing something..the setup almost
> made me say "Uncle"!
>
> running!
>
> 338.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> B60.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> 35C.png
> < 1KViewDownload
>
> 360.gif
> < 1KViewDownload
John Mewhort
Nov 16, 2009, 8:26:59 PM11/16/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
Mike,
I agree 100% with you about being able to start a bare server and configure it. In fact, I almost did that using an Amazon EC2 instance but I found Heroku almost seconds before doing so and I figured I'd give it a whirl and it WORKED :) .
I plan on using a cloud instance very soon. I was just SO frustrated with all the time I was spending trying to get something live, I almost gave up. Seriously, I spent more than 24 hours of actual time, between trying to configure Ruby on Rails locally and then deploying it on a dv Media Temple server. Now, I maybe a slow learner, but even with help from their tech support I wasn't able to get it working.
Do you use a pre-configured instance? I found some online you can download but I'm a little weary because of the potential backdoors someone may put in them. I think there a few at github.
Why did you decide to use www.rackspacecloud.com instead of Amazon EC2? Does it cost less? Better support or???
Once I configure an instance using cloud hosting, can I deploy as many apps as the server can handle? Will I be able to host the remainder of my domains that are not Ruby on Rails apps? Also, how do I determine what I need as far as RAM/computing power? Which distribution do you recommend I start with?
Thanks for your input!
John
Michael Grice
Nov 16, 2009, 10:37:25 PM11/16/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
Agree with RackSpace Cloud. I have been using them for all my hosting
for 4+ years with VERY little problems. They have live tech support
24-7 that is knowledgeable, friendly, and answers Live Chat or
toll-free line within seconds.
For DNS, I use DNS Made Easy (www.dnsmadeeasy.com). Not the cheapest,
but among the best.
for 4+ years with VERY little problems. They have live tech support
24-7 that is knowledgeable, friendly, and answers Live Chat or
toll-free line within seconds.
For DNS, I use DNS Made Easy (www.dnsmadeeasy.com). Not the cheapest,
but among the best.
Ken Collins
Nov 16, 2009, 11:35:49 PM11/16/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
I was thinking about this for EC2 when HomeMarks moves. Heroku seems
great too but is so far from my normal ( I manage everything ) setup.
http://github.com/wr0ngway/rubber
Sent from my iPhone
great too but is so far from my normal ( I manage everything ) setup.
http://github.com/wr0ngway/rubber
Sent from my iPhone
Michael Buckbee
Nov 17, 2009, 1:14:40 AM11/17/09
to 757.rb
You're not a slow learner, MediaTemple is just confusing and how they
have their RoR servers configured it swallows errors so you have no
clue what's going wrong.
As far as evaluating the different services, first thing would be to
ditch thinking about them as the same thing.
Rackspace Cloud - These are all Virtual Private Servers (VPS). You can
pretend like they took a server out of the box, plugged the power and
ethernet cables in and loaded up the linux distribution of your choice
on it (I like Ubuntu + Apache + Passenger, if you just google those
three words you'll be good to go). You have to load everything on it,
but to my mind that's a benefit. For a low load server like what it
seems you are setting up, you would definitely be fine with a 512 MB
instance ($21 / mo + bandwidth).
Amazon EC2 - These are "Computing Instances" and have some weird
strengths and weaknesses that make them somewhat challening (and in my
mind a bad fit) for what you want to do. For instance, when you reboot
an EC2 instance it loses whatever you had "saved" to the local storage
outside of the Amazon Machine Instance (AMI). There are ways around
this like using their Elastic Block Storage and running things off to
Amazon S3, but it's fiddly and again not exactly suited to getting
started.
My general advice is that unless you are specifically using some of
the other Amazon Web Services you probably don't need to be using
EC2.
I'm friends with some guys who run a service analyzing SEC filings,
thousands of pages of which are released every night. So, every night
they spin up a bunch of EC2 instances to run their analysis and
sorting operations, dump all the results to S3 and then kill all of
the EC2 instances (as they would otherwise sit idle all day doing
nothing). They are the textbook case for EC2 + S3 usage.
The smallest EC2 instance costs around $60 a month (though if you pay
way 3 years ahead this can drop to as little as 10 a month). But you
still have to pay for bandwidth + storage on EBS+S3+their managed
MySQL plan.
Hope that helps,
Mike
On Nov 16, 8:26 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mike,
>
> I agree 100% with you about being able to start a bare server and configure
> it. In fact, I almost did that using an Amazon EC2 instance but I found
> Heroku almost seconds before doing so and I figured I'd give it a whirl and
> it WORKED :) .
>
> I plan on using a cloud instance very soon. I was just
> SO frustrated with all the time I was spending trying to get
> something live, I almost gave up. Seriously, I spent more than 24
> hours of actual time, between trying to configure Ruby on Rails
> locally and then deploying it on a dv Media Temple server. Now, I maybe a
> slow learner, but even with help from their tech support I wasn't able to
> get it working.
>
> Do you use a pre-configured instance? I found some online you can download
> but I'm a little weary because of the potential backdoors someone may put in
> them. I think there a few at github.
>
> Why did you decide to usewww.rackspacecloud.cominstead of Amazon EC2?
> > > recommends you usewww.zerigo.comforDNS management. I was FINALLY able
have their RoR servers configured it swallows errors so you have no
clue what's going wrong.
As far as evaluating the different services, first thing would be to
ditch thinking about them as the same thing.
Rackspace Cloud - These are all Virtual Private Servers (VPS). You can
pretend like they took a server out of the box, plugged the power and
ethernet cables in and loaded up the linux distribution of your choice
on it (I like Ubuntu + Apache + Passenger, if you just google those
three words you'll be good to go). You have to load everything on it,
but to my mind that's a benefit. For a low load server like what it
seems you are setting up, you would definitely be fine with a 512 MB
instance ($21 / mo + bandwidth).
Amazon EC2 - These are "Computing Instances" and have some weird
strengths and weaknesses that make them somewhat challening (and in my
mind a bad fit) for what you want to do. For instance, when you reboot
an EC2 instance it loses whatever you had "saved" to the local storage
outside of the Amazon Machine Instance (AMI). There are ways around
this like using their Elastic Block Storage and running things off to
Amazon S3, but it's fiddly and again not exactly suited to getting
started.
My general advice is that unless you are specifically using some of
the other Amazon Web Services you probably don't need to be using
EC2.
I'm friends with some guys who run a service analyzing SEC filings,
thousands of pages of which are released every night. So, every night
they spin up a bunch of EC2 instances to run their analysis and
sorting operations, dump all the results to S3 and then kill all of
the EC2 instances (as they would otherwise sit idle all day doing
nothing). They are the textbook case for EC2 + S3 usage.
The smallest EC2 instance costs around $60 a month (though if you pay
way 3 years ahead this can drop to as little as 10 a month). But you
still have to pay for bandwidth + storage on EBS+S3+their managed
MySQL plan.
Hope that helps,
Mike
On Nov 16, 8:26 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mike,
>
> I agree 100% with you about being able to start a bare server and configure
> it. In fact, I almost did that using an Amazon EC2 instance but I found
> Heroku almost seconds before doing so and I figured I'd give it a whirl and
> it WORKED :) .
>
> I plan on using a cloud instance very soon. I was just
> SO frustrated with all the time I was spending trying to get
> something live, I almost gave up. Seriously, I spent more than 24
> hours of actual time, between trying to configure Ruby on Rails
> locally and then deploying it on a dv Media Temple server. Now, I maybe a
> slow learner, but even with help from their tech support I wasn't able to
> get it working.
>
> Do you use a pre-configured instance? I found some online you can download
> but I'm a little weary because of the potential backdoors someone may put in
> them. I think there a few at github.
>
> Does it cost less? Better support or???
>
> Once I configure an instance using cloud hosting, can I deploy as many apps
> as the server can handle? Will I be able to host the remainder of my
> domains that are not Ruby on Rails apps? Also, how do I determine what I
> need as far as RAM/computing power? Which distribution do you recommend I
> start with?
>
> Thanks for your input!
>
> John
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Michael Buckbee
> <michaelbuck...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Once I configure an instance using cloud hosting, can I deploy as many apps
> as the server can handle? Will I be able to host the remainder of my
> domains that are not Ruby on Rails apps? Also, how do I determine what I
> need as far as RAM/computing power? Which distribution do you recommend I
> start with?
>
> Thanks for your input!
>
> John
>
> On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 8:01 PM, Michael Buckbee
>
>
>
> > I had significant difficulties getting things setup on Media Temple as
> > well. They have some proprietary methods of splitting everything up
> > into different "grids" or semi-virtual servers or some such craziness.
> > In any case the end point was that you couldn't actually Google for a
> > fix or sort something out yourself so you had to rely on their support
> > (which I would describe as well meaning, but somewhat ineffective).
>
> > It's great that Heroku worked for you and if that's what you need, by
> > all means stick with it. However, I think that the ability to start
> > with a bare linux server and configure Ruby + Rails + MySQL (or
> > whatever) on it is a very important skill to have. What's even crazier
> > to me is that it was both easier and cheaper to setup and configure
> > everything myself than almost any alternative.
>
> > I recommend checking out Rackspace's Cloud Servers
> >http://www.rackspacecloud.com/
> > - aka Cheaper Slicehost - they are very inexpensive for what you get
> > and you have full root access to your instances. We're running dozens
> > of these for our company and they're great.
>
> > - Mike
>
> > On Nov 16, 7:04 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Have any of you heard ofwww.Heroku.comtohost a Ruby App with? Heroku
>
>
> > I had significant difficulties getting things setup on Media Temple as
> > well. They have some proprietary methods of splitting everything up
> > into different "grids" or semi-virtual servers or some such craziness.
> > In any case the end point was that you couldn't actually Google for a
> > fix or sort something out yourself so you had to rely on their support
> > (which I would describe as well meaning, but somewhat ineffective).
>
> > It's great that Heroku worked for you and if that's what you need, by
> > all means stick with it. However, I think that the ability to start
> > with a bare linux server and configure Ruby + Rails + MySQL (or
> > whatever) on it is a very important skill to have. What's even crazier
> > to me is that it was both easier and cheaper to setup and configure
> > everything myself than almost any alternative.
>
> > I recommend checking out Rackspace's Cloud Servers
> >http://www.rackspacecloud.com/
> > - aka Cheaper Slicehost - they are very inexpensive for what you get
> > and you have full root access to your instances. We're running dozens
> > of these for our company and they're great.
>
> > - Mike
>
> > On Nov 16, 7:04 pm, John Mewhort <jmewh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > recommends you usewww.zerigo.comforDNS management. I was FINALLY able
> > to
> > > get my sample app up using this service but I wanted to know if anyone
> > uses
> > > them already or has had any prior experience.
>
> > > Since I'm a complete newbie... "I've been tossing darts in the dark" to
> > get
> > > something up and running. I finally gave up on Media Temple after
> > spending
> > > many hours of complete frustration with the setup. I'm sure there's an
> > easy
> > > way to do it...I just never figured it out myself. Anyway, let me know
> > what
> > > you guys think about using Heroku & Zerigo to deploy an app. Am I on the
> > > right track??? Yes, no or maybe so???
>
> > > Either way, I'm STOKED to get started developing something..the setup
> > almost
> > > made me say "Uncle"!
>
> > > In case anyone wants to see my first go at things - here's the link -
> >www.mydealmanager.com[?] [?][?] [?] [?] Not much but at least it's up
> > > get my sample app up using this service but I wanted to know if anyone
> > uses
> > > them already or has had any prior experience.
>
> > > Since I'm a complete newbie... "I've been tossing darts in the dark" to
> > get
> > > something up and running. I finally gave up on Media Temple after
> > spending
> > > many hours of complete frustration with the setup. I'm sure there's an
> > easy
> > > way to do it...I just never figured it out myself. Anyway, let me know
> > what
> > > you guys think about using Heroku & Zerigo to deploy an app. Am I on the
> > > right track??? Yes, no or maybe so???
>
> > > Either way, I'm STOKED to get started developing something..the setup
> > almost
> > > made me say "Uncle"!
>
> > > In case anyone wants to see my first go at things - here's the link -
Ken Collins
Nov 17, 2009, 7:23:23 AM11/17/09
to 75...@googlegroups.com
Good stuff Mike! Thanks for sharing.
- Ken
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