Quinn

I had some fun playing with CentOS4. I am kind of new to rpm and yum, so I thought I should make some notes.

It is time to go PHP5. I am so happy to see the movement. Unfortunately, I had a box of CentOS4 came with PHP4 installed. Yes, I was obsessed to make a change to the box.

I had to install yum first. I had to get some dependencies as well, so here is what I did.

#wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/sqlite-3.3.6-2.i386.rpm
#wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
#wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.el4.centos.i386.rpm
#wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/python-urlgrabber-2.9.8-2.noarch.rpm
#wget http://mirror.centos.org/centos-4/4/os/i386/CentOS/RPMS/yum-2.4.3-3.el4.centos.noarch.rpm

# rpm -ivh sqlite-3.3.6-2.i386.rpm
# rpm -ivh python-sqlite-1.1.7-1.2.1.i386.rpm
# rpm -ivh python-elementtree-1.2.6-5.el4.centos.i386.rpm
# rpm -ivh python-urlgrabber-2.9.8-2.noarch.rpm
# rpm -ivh yum-2.4.3-3.el4.centos.noarch.rpm

Now yum is ready. But, when I went..

# yum update --enablerepo=centosplus php

I got errors of dependency conflicts. Then, I found this, which explains the issue of upgrading to PHP5 with yum.

• http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/centosplus/Readme.txt

Here was the solution.

# vi /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Base.repo

[base]
exclude=php* kernel* postfix*
[update]
exclude=php* kernel* postfix*
[centosplus]
exclude=php-xml php-domxml

I am not sure if this one above actually helped. But removing php-domxml like below was a MUST. Then, it came through.

# rpm -e --nodeps php-domxml
# yum update --enablerepo=centosplus mysql php

This upgraded all MySQL and PostgreSQL as well. If the server was hosting real websites, I should to be more careful though. Anyway, I then added some of those and I'm happy now.

http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4/centosplus/i386/RPMS/php-xml-5.1.6-3.el4s1.7.i386.rpm
http://centos.arcticnetwork.ca/4/centosplus/i386/RPMS/php-xmlrpc-5.1.6-3.el4s1.7.i386.rpm

This is about how to set up web server to run RoR with Apache in front.

I am hosting several domains with Apache and its VirtualHost directories. I was wondering if I could run Rails with the same server and the same port. Yes, I knew the anwer was mod_proxy but never tried before. Well, that had to change. Here is what I came up this time. It was pretty easy and nice.

There is no mod_proxy package/port for FreeBSD. I had to recompile Apache2.0 with this configuration.

echo "WITH_PROXY_MODULES=yes" >> /etc/make.conf

Then, I did.

portupgrade -f apache2

Easy way, huh? But if you don't have portupgrade, you may have to do..

# cd /usr/ports/www/apache20
# make deinstall
# make install clean

Then, I added these lines in the apache config file.

# vi /usr/local/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

LoadModule proxy_module       libexec/apache2/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_ftp_module       libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_ftp.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module      libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module   libexec/apache2/mod_proxy_connect.so

Make a new Rails app.

$ mkdir -p /path/to/application
$ rails /path/to/application
$ cd /path/to/application
$ mongrel_rails start -d

Lastly, mod_rewrite does the rest with [p] flag.

$ cd /path/to/application
$ vi .htaccess

RewriteEngine   on
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule     (.*) http://localhost:3000/$1 [P]

Now, I can access to the Rails application without specifying the port number but a url to the directory just like the others. In this way, I don't have to reconfigure the router to open the ports every time I start new RoR. Cool. Isn't it?

I was gone fishing last weekend. I used to go fishing alot since I was a kid, but it was not happening that often last few years. So, finally, I kind of FORCED myself to GO! : ) Anyway, it went good. I actually caught some Tai (Red Snapper), brought them home, and fed my family. We ate some in raw slices (Sashimi), soup, and baked. That was all delicious!

I just bumped into Babelgum, an internet TV, video, movie broadcaster. I just installed the beta application to my Windows XP machine and watching the shows right now. I usually don't use my Windows machine any more than just testing browser compatibilities for websites I make. However, this is looking so fantastic! Actually, I just can't wait Joost to come with a Mac client, which is probably very soon. If you are interested in Babelgum, I think this page is the right place to start.

Quinn's Photo [Zooomr]