> i am trying to learn how to setup and maintain a vps for some rails apps. i have used shared and managed hosting but now i am looking for the freedom and flexibility a vps offers. i signed up with linode to give me something to play around with until i feel comfortable to deploy my live apps to a vps. i want to learn best practices and how to do things right.
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> initially i plan on hosting only a few smaller rails apps, but hopefully more in the future.
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> i have searched google and read quite a bit, but was wondering if any of the rails professionals could point me in the direction of some good resources or give their input directly?
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> i have also read through many of the stackscripts and some seem good, others don't even setup a firewall.
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> here are some of the questions that have been going through my head that i have been trying to figure out.
You've got a lot of questions here that aren't rails specific... and a lot that are 6-to-1 half-dozen to the other...
Since you mention linode, I'd spend the time to read through the articles at http://library.linode.com/. And the comments. Then for a slightly different take read through http://articles.slicehost.com/.
> security
> -all rails apps under one user or separate user for each app?
Up to you. Are the apps related? Even if they are under a different user, can one user still read the other user's files?
> keeping the software up to date
> -how about ruby, gems, rails,...
I'd suggest not using the OS' apt for gems... use rvm and bundler, etc.
> which of the following is better for rails apps
> rvm per user or system wide?
If you go with Passenger you'll need to use rvm system wide as passenger can only use one ruby instance.
-philip