Paul Dowman

UPDATE: it’s 0.9.8.1 now, there was a small update to the RubyGem. The new gem uses the same AMI’s.

EC2 on Rails version 0.9.8 is now available (or will be in a few hours when the RubyForge servers are synced). This is a recommended update for everyone.

It includes some major new features:

• monit monitoring daemon: monitors mysqld, apache, memcached, mongrels, system load and free drive space
• incremental MySQL backup (important for large databases)
• Apache SSL support
• a local Postfix SMTP server enabled by default

And most importantly this fixes the problem with broken Ubuntu package updates which was caused by a missing repository in the list of repositories.

As I mentioned yesterday, the base image is now built using Eric Hammond’s EC2 Ubuntu script.

Also, there are major new features such as incremental MySQL backup (important for large databases), Apache SSL support, and a local Postfix SMTP server enabled by default.

My priorities now are:

1. Release an update based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy (this version is still using Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy because I wanted to provide a reliable update as quickly as possible due to bug #20040. But now that the base image is built with Eric Hammond’s script it should be easy to update to Hardy.)
2. Create complete documentation.
3. Release a 100% bug-free version 1.0 with the current feature-set. Please help by reporting any bugs you find, either using the RubyForge bug tracker or by email.

There’s going to be a great Ruby conference in Toronto this summer: RubyFringe. Actually, maybe it’s not a Ruby conference, it’s “an avant-garde conference for developers that are excited about emerging technologies outside of the Ruby on Rails monoculture”.

RubyFringe is a single-track indie conference with no paid technical sponsors and a target attendance of 150.

It will run for two days (plus an opening night), with roughly 10 speakers or panels each day.

There’s a kick-ass list of speakers, including out-of-towners like Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Zed Shaw (now’s your chance to fight him! ;-), Obie Fernandez, and local Torontonians like Reg Braithwaite and Leila Boujnane.

Registration opens tomorrow.

See you there!

GigPark is a Toronto-based web startup. We’re just a couple of weeks out of beta, growing fast and looking for a great developer to join us.

The site is built with Ruby on Rails and hosted on EC2.

If this sounds exciting to you, or if you know someone who might be a good fit, please see our jobs page for details.

UPDATE January 2008: we’ve hired two kick-ass developers!

I’ve been working hard on EC2 on Rails, version 0.9.5 is now available. Since my last post here there have been some major changes:

Capistrano tasks

There is now a rubygem available that provides Capistrano tasks to manage the instance. There are tasks to set the server’s timezone, install packages and rubygems, backup, restore, create and delete the database, set the MySQL root password, and more. To use these in your Rails project type:

> sudo gem install ec2onrails

Put Capfile in the root of your rails folder, and put deploy.rb in the config folder.

Then, from the root of your project type:

> cap ec2onrails:setup

This automatically sets your server’s timezone, installs any custom rubygems and Ubuntu packages, and creates your database for you. You can now deploy your rails app as you normally would:

> cap deploy:migrations

Another useful task for testing is:

> cap ec2onrails:restore_db_and_deploy

This recreates the database, restores data from an S3 bucket (specified in your deploy.rb), and deploys the app. I use this to prepare a staging server with the current production data and current production version of the app. After running this task I have an exact copy of my production server. I then deploy the latest version to this server before deploying it to production. This is a good way to be really sure your production deployment won’t fail (especially your migrations).

To see a list of all available Capistrano tasks:

> cap -T

New Ubuntu version

It’s now built with Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy”.

Support for new instance types

There are both i386 and x86_64 versions available to support the new EC2 instance types. So you can now use large and extra-large instances.

Multiple instances

The earlier versions only worked if your rails app was running on a single server. That was lame! Now you can have multiple instances using any combination of these roles: web server, app server, primary database. I’m working on adding a MySQL slave role and eventually a Memcache role.

For full instructions and details see the project web site.

Just a couple of announcements about my Ruby on Rails server image for EC2:

New version

There is a new server image with some minor changes and bug fixes. For details see the change log. I’ll keep the old image around for a while.

Mailing lists

I have created two Google groups, one for announcements only (new versions, etc.), and one for general discussion.

Ongoing work

I’m working on a build script so the image can be built from source. Then I will provide access to a subversion repository with the source. Some people have expressed an interest in contributing, which I’m really happy about! If you want to get involved, please join the mailing list!