RubyStack: the easiest way to
deploy Ruby on Rails

Who is danoo ... ?
• Daniel Liszka, Polish
• started with Linux: 10 years ago
• Linux security labs, Linux Security final project in high
school
• studied at Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice
• organized conference Open Source in Organization –
Interinfo_2004, Gliwice

I met www.BitRock.com
And everything really started ...

Meet BitRock
• Founded in 2003, privately held with offices in Seville, Spain and
San Francisco, USA
• Develops packaging, installation and update tools to provide a
complete Open Source Application Deployment solution
• Clients span the globe, and include Fortune 100 corporations,
governments, educational institutions, and the leading open
source companies
• Recent honors include Red Herring 100 Winner and Red Herring
Open Source 20 Winner
OPEN SOURCE 20

www. BitRock.com
• BitRock makes open source software easier to use by
providing a complete automated solution for Open
Source Application Deployment.
• Makes it fun
• brings it to people

Ruby
• “Ruby is a dynamic, object­oriented programming
language. It combines syntax inspired by Perl with
Smalltalk­like object­oriented features, and also shares
some features with Python, Lisp, Dylan, and CLU. Its
official implementation is free software written in C.”
• Beautiful
• FUN !!!

Ruby
# In an object instance variable (denoted with '@'),
remember a block.
def remember(&a_block)
@block = a_block
end
# Invoke the above method, giving it a block that takes a
name.
remember {|name| puts "Hello, #{name}!"}
# When the time is right (for the object) ­­ call the
closure!
@block.call("Jon")
# => "Hello, Jon!"

Ruby on Rails
• “web application framework that aims to increase the
speed and ease with which database­driven web sites
can be created and offers skeleton code frameworks
(scaffolding) from the outset. Often shortened to Rails,
or RoR, Ruby on Rails is an open source project
written in the Ruby programming language and
applications using the Rails framework are developed
using the Model­View­Controller design pattern”
• Beautifull
• FUN !!!

It is my story
• We decided to start with RoR
• Lovely !
• me as a developer, I need development environment
• My team needs development environment – it would
be cool if both are the same
• My graphics designer needs it as well
• They have different operating systems, different
requirements (GUI,text mode,...) and skills
• I want to use several environments on one machine

It is my story
• DEMO day is coming !!!
• deployment
• scale your application ­ > several servers
• deployment on many servers
– chroot
– Vmware, XEN
– Solaris Zones
– Amazon EC2

We need
• Ruby and Ruby Gems
• RoR
• MySQL, SQLite
• Apache
• Subversion
• libraries

We need at least that . . . (RubyStack Features)
• completely self­contained
• re­locatable
• not interfere with existing software
• works on different operating systems
• easy to install

TOOLS

RubyStack Installer
• created using BitRock InstallBuilder
• easy to use
• multiplatform
• native look and feel
• GUI, text and unattended modes
• Platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Solaris, ...
• No External Dependencies

Apart from that ....
• Desktop Integration
• RPM and DEB generation (beta)
• Optimized : BitRock installers are optimized in size and
speed
• Ease of Development
• Support for Qt® GUI Frontend
• Uninstall Functionality
• LZIP
• Multiple Language Support

InstallBuilder (RubyStack Installer)

InstallBuilder (RubyStack Installer)

InstallBuilder (RubyStack Installer)

InstallBuilder (RubyStack Installer)

Unattended mode
Many different options:
# rubystack­1.0­linux­installer.bin ­­mode unattended ­­
prefix /secure/tmp/ruby_unatended ­­rubystack_version
production ­­apache_server_port 4568 ­­mysql_port 4321
­­mysql_db_name blabla

Take a look at Capistrano tool (capify.org)
desc "Install RubyStack"
task :install do
run "! test ­d #{rubystack_path}"
install_string = "./#{rubystack_binary}
­­mode unattended
­­prefix #{rubystack_path}
­­rubystack_version production
­­apache_server_port #{rubystack_apache_port}
­­mysql_port #{rubystack_mysql_port}
­­mysql_db_name #{application}
­­mysql_db_username #{application}­user"
if rubystack_apache_port < 1024
sudo install_string
else
run install_string
end
run "echo ". #{rubystack_path}/scripts/setenv.sh" >> ~/.bashrc"
end

Take a look at Capistrano tool (capify.org)
• “Great for automating tasks via SSH on remote servers,
like software installation, application deployment,
configuration management, ad hoc server monitoring,
and more.
• Ideal for system administrators, whether professional or
incidental.
• Easy to customize.
• Easy to extend. Capistrano is written in the Ruby”

Conclusions
(for the RubyStack Installer)
­ let's start demo

It is not the end
­ do you remember the components we need ?
­ and very specific features ?
(completely self­contained,re­locatable
not interfere with existing software)

RubyStack Components
zlib version: 1.2.3 ncurses version: 5.6
libiconv version: 1.9.2 readline version: 5.2
openssl version: 0.9.7l ruby version: 1.8.6
sqlite version: 3.3.6 rubygems version: 0.9.4
httpd version: 2.2.4 rake version: 0.7.3
mysql version: 5.0.45 rails version: 1.2.3
libpng version: 1.2.10 fastthread version: 1.0
jpegsrc version: v6b mongrel version: 1.0.1
freetype version: 2.3.4 rmagick version: 1.15.6
libwmf version: 0.2.8.4 mongrel_cluster version: 1.0.2
ghostscript version: 8.56 gruff version: 0.2.8
ImageMagick version: 6.3.4 capistrano version: 2.0.0
expat version: 2.0.0
neon version: 0.25.5
subversion version: 1.4.4

Lets take a look inside
• Building & testing system
• Integration
• logic inside XML files
• Wrappers ?!?

Lets take a look inside
• Examples: svn and ruby binaries and wrappers
• Lets try to run them
• LD_LIBRARY_PATH ­> wrappers
• what about the shebang line
• rubyconsole & rubystackctl.sh

Conclusions
­ RubyStack is great platform
­ not finished yet
­ but already tested in production

Questions ???

Thank you !
Daniel Liszka
danoo@BitRock.com