A little tiny bug in Phusion Passenger 2.0.5

If you are using Phusion Passenger like me, I believe you would love it very much. It is such an effort saver. So I've put it on all my machines, even on my dev. , testing and staging machines. But some times I want my Rack apps started in a development mode, so I went through Passenger's document, and added RackEnv environtment variable.



After a restart, I've found that the app was still in production mode. Just played with it for a while and added some debug info, finally I found a workaround, that is, put the RackEnv outside the VirtualHost block.



I am hoping this will save you some time.

P.S. I've submitted a bug report on the issue tracker

Step by step setting up an OS X Leopard server for a Merb/DM/MySQL5.1 application with Phusion Passenger

1. Working env. set up

    a. Update your OS X Leopard

    b. Install Developer pkg

    c. Install MacPort

        - download at http://www.macports.org/

    d. Install git

        $sudo port install git-core

2. Install the latest MySQL server

    http://zhhz.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-tune-mysql-server-performance.html

    sudo gem install mysql

3. Install edge Merb/DataMapper

    a. Install Thor

        $ sudo gem install thor

    b. Local installation for a bundled application

        I like to bundle my dependencies with the application, make it independent of my system's gems. This will make it easy to trace with the edge Merb and DM.

        

        - install thor

            $cd your-merb-app

            $curl -L http://merbivore.com/merb.thor > merb.thor

            you can see the tasks by:

            $thor list

        - install edge merb

            $thor merb:tasks:setup

            if you have some errors here, you probably should install rspec first: 

            $sudo gem install rspec

            You will get bin and gems folders

            Install edge merb and dm

            $bin/thor merb:edge --install

            You will get a src folder

            $bin/thor merb:edge:plugins --install

        - install edge dm:

            $bin/thor merb:source:clone git://github.com/sam/dm-core.git

            $bin/thor merb:source:clone git://github.com/sam/dm-more.git

            $bin/thor merb:source:clone git://github.com/sam/do.git

            $bin/thor merb:source:install dm-core

            $bin/thor merb:source:install dm-more

            $bin/thor merb:source:install do/data_objects

            $bin/thor merb:source:install do/do_mysql

            $bin/thor merb:source:install dm-more/merb_datamapper

        - install mongrel

            $bin/thor merb:gems:install mongrel

            You should be able to start your merb app by:

            $bin/merb

4. Install Phusion Passenger

    Details from: http://www.modrails.com/

    a. $gem install passenger

    b. $passenger-install-apache2-module

    c. Modify your httpd.conf

        # c&p from the console of passenger installer:

        LoadModule passenger_module /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so

        PassengerRoot /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3

        PassengerRuby /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby

        # config for your app

            <VirtualHost *:80>

                ServerName app.yourdomain.com

                DocumentRoot "abs_path_to_your_merb_app/public"

            </VirtualHost>

        d. Config app for passenger:

            go to your merb app directory:

            $cd your-merb-app

            1. create a tmp folder

                $mkdir tmp

            2. create a file config.ru with following content:

                require 'rubygems'

                if File.directory?(gems_dir = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '.', 'gems'))

                    $BUNDLE = true; Gem.clear_paths; Gem.path.unshift(gems_dir)

                end

                require 'merb-core'

                Merb::Config.setup(:merb_root   => ".",

                    :environment => ENV['RACK_ENV'])

                Merb.environment = Merb::Config[:environment]

                Merb.root = Merb::Config[:merb_root]

Merb::BootLoader.run

                run Merb::Rack::Application.new

            e. Restart your apache server.

5. Modify your spec_helper.rb

    to make your specs working, you have to do the same as the config.ru:

    if File.directory?(gems_dir = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', 'gems'))

        $BUNDLE = true; Gem.clear_paths; Gem.path.unshift(gems_dir)

    end

You are ready to go!

UPDATE: The merb part may not good now.