dan.thoughts

Developing with Merb or Sinatra ? Like web server nginx ? Ok, lets go.

Basically, Merb/Sinatra uses thin (based on eventmachine) server module, so it is working as stand-alone application. So, there is a way to connect nginx with these applications. Very simple – all you need to proxy requests to backend server. And all static files will be served by nginx.

upstream your_app {
  server 127.0.0.1:YOUR_PORT_NUMBER;
}

server {
  server_name YOUR_SERVERNAME;
  listen 80;
  charset utf-8;
  client_max_body_size 64M; # maximum of proxied filesize (for uploads)

  location / {
    root /path/to/app/root;
    proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
    proxy_redirect false;
    if (-f $request_filename) {
      break;
    }

    if (!-f $request_filename) {
      proxy_pass http://your_app;
      break;
    }
  }

  # static content (images, flash, styles, etc.)
  location ~* ^.+\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|js|swf)$ {
    root /path/to/your/public/dir;
    access_log off;
  }
}

Then, all you need – start your application in daemon mode. Dont forget to bind application server to listen only on local address (127.0.0.1).