Imminent Web Services

First, please check the Apache website for

• Apache HTTP Server Version 2.2 Security Tips 
• Apache HTTP Server Version 2.0 Security Tips 

http://xianshield.org/guides/apache2.0guide.html has some nice tips on how to harden your apache server. Especially, check your httpd.conf and make sure the configurations are fine.

Here are some of the ways to run Ruby on Rails behind Apache.

Apache + mod_fcgid

Reference Howto Setup Apache With FastCGI And Ruby Bindings.

Apache mod_fcgid

Make sure mod_fcgid is available, if not, install it
# emerge -pv www-apache/mod_fcgid

Ruby fcgi

I was not able to install it via gem. See error below:

I was curious on how some of these frameworks or CMS differ in terms of response time. So I did this very simple test.

My hardware: dual xeon, 3GB RAM, two 7200 RPM SCSI disks.

Software version: Drupal-5.7, mysql-5.0.54, apache-2.2.8, lighttpd-1.4.18-r3, php-5.2.6_rc1-r1, PECL-APC-3.0.6, Gentoo linux kernel 2.6.24-gentoo-r3

Data: the Drupal database was from a production website, with over 200MB in size, about 9000 nodes, 280 taxonomy terms, and 100 users.

On apache, it uses mod_php, with APC enabled.

On lighttpd, it uses fastcgi, with APC enabled.