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railsappliance

Senthil

Officially we are competing in the VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge.

Our Virtual Appliance is called Rails Appliance

 Rails Appliance downloads available at rapidshare

Rails Appliance Forum 

update: 12th June 2006,

you can find rails appliance on vmware directory, http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/directory/220

Download Vmware Appliance torrent here  

you can post your comments at vmware forum here

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=43953 

if you like it, please vote for us 

regards

Senthilnayagam

 

instructions for using Rails Appliance

use vmplayer to boot the Rails Appliance

login credentials
-----------------
user: root
pass: root1

 

network config

--------------
the virtual machine network config type is NAT.
ie., If the host machine has internet access, the virtual machine can also use it.

it uses DHCP for IP configuration.
to view the IP address of this machine, run the cmd
    $ ifconfig eth0  
use that IP to access the VM from host machine via PuTTY

 

mysql details
--------------

you can create additional db's and manage your mysql in console mode within the appliance
login: root
no password

SVN
---
with root access you can create svn repository

start/stop the lighttpd web server
----------------------------------
after the virtual machine has been booted, run the following cmd
    $ lighttpdctl start
    $ lighttpdctl stop

rforum sample app
-----------------
   http://rforum.tmp

there is one user account (admin).
username: admin
password: admin1

this application requires smtp server to send the password
for new user registration

the email configuration should be done in the file
/www/rforum/config/site.rb

Note:
if you are using windows (IP is the ip assigned to your server or which you configured, in network config)
add the following DNS entries in your hosts file ()
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
IP rforum.tmp

to access CD
-------------
put the cd into the drive. run the following cmd
$ mount /dev/cdrom /cdrom
the cd contents can be read from the directory /cdrom
then unmount the cd, using the following cmd
$ umount /cdrom
then eject the cd

Useful commands
---------------
to check if web server is running
$ netstat -ant

to shutdown machine
$ shutdown -h now

for any further Information please email us

Senthil Nayagam
Technical Manager
Broadspire
email: senthil (@) broadspire.com

Gopinath Kesavan
Senior Developer
Broadspire
email: gopinath (at) broadspire.com

FAQ:
1) Why we built this Virtual Machine
we wanted to test our rails application on lighttpd/fcgi and apache/scgi and other combinations before we take our site into production

2) for which site
http://www.broadspire.com , we launched our site on 19th May, with Apache and SCGI

3) what are the components implemented
we were impressed with railsmachine video and wanted to have our version which we use ourself and offer to our clients.

we have implemented lighttpd, mysql,ssh, svn, ruby, gems, rails,

we have tried capistrano, but you need to experiment with your network and confirm your success

4) what if you win some prize
though possibilities are remote, there are too many smart people out there, would love to buy our first laptops

5) what is the License
it is Ruby / Rails style licensing and since it is derived from Ubuntu and uses VMware product for running and development

6) how can I add a feature to the appliance
you would require Vmware Workstation or Server for doing major works, but with vmplayer itself you can do simple additions with Sudo

7) where can I get upto date information on this project
I am not sure if it is a project onto itself, it is a outcome of one our research activity, but you can get more info on http://senthilnayagam.com/railsappliance/

8) Where to host my site developed on your appliance
My company offers excellent hosting solutions, you can visit it at http://www.broadspire.com

9) why does it take 4Gb
we planned to test upto 100 installations/projects with capistrano with frozen rails

100 x 4mb per frozen project x 5 revisions per project = 2000mb approx 2GB

10) why 7z compression
it is very efficient and open source,

correction: vmware asked to submit in zip only so torrent is a zip file and not 7z 

11) I want to ask a question,
you can contact via project page   contact link above

12) how did you use it
initially developed on VMware server/workstation
once applicance was created and functional, we configured it individually for each developer or as a common shared staging server,

we worked on Rails appliance console using ssh via putty

we used capistrano for deployment

 

small correction

add the following DNS entries in your hosts file
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
IP rforum.tmp

it should be rforum.test instead of rforum.tmp, probably you would have found it by now if you had seen lighttpd.conf

thank you, claudio pacchiega , for correcting me,

we are looking for hosting/mirroring space for this virtual machine distribution, If you can offer space please mail me at senthil.nayagam (at) gmail.com

 

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railsappliance, tags: VMware Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge, lighttpd, rails, capistrano
created:05/24/2006 04:14AM