Start mongrel in ssh session and then exit in Ubuntu 10.04

duypl · 10-06-2010, 05:06 AM

Hi all,

I'm deploying a Rails application in a Ubuntu 10.04 server with
mongrel web server (a lightweight http web server). I connect to server and do stuffs in a ssh client
(PuTTY on windows). And I'm getting stuck with a strange issue:
1. After I connected to server, I start mongrel with : $ start-stop-
daemon -S -d . -x script/server -b -- -p 8080
2. I left the ssh console and launch firefox from my Win7 box and open
the website, it runs well. I can see the homepage
3. I go back to the ssh console. Close the terminal (and window too)
it by : $ exit
4. Then in firefox, I press F5 to refresh and nothing shows up. It's
just an empty space in whole webpage. I tried to use addon to capture
the HTTP data and see that the server returns nothing , even HTTP
headers
5. I connect to server again, run "ps -Af" to check and see that the process's still running. And again, leave the console, switch to firefox and refresh -> the homepage shows everything.
6. But if I exit the ssh session and refresh browser, the web server returns nothing again

I thought that using start-stop-daemon command could help me run
mongrel as daemon and then I can exit my session just as apache does.
But it doesn't work.

Do I miss something ?

Duy

mago · 10-07-2010, 11:34 AM

I have no experience with Mongrel, but there is a number of ways for you to leave the command running.

You can use:

Code:

nohup start-stop-daemon -S -d . -x script/server -b -- -p 8080 &

That will through it on the background even when you close the ssh session.

Another one is install screen and run this:

Code:

screen -dmS $NAME start-stop-daemon -S -d . -x script/server -b -- -p 8080

Where $NAME is the name of the session.

Then if you want to end the session run:

Code:

screen -r $NAME

And you can use exit to ctrl+c to kill it and then exit to close the session.

duypl · 10-12-2010, 04:06 AM

@mago: many thanks, mate :-)