Passenger 2.2.4 packages for Ubuntu 29 Jun 09

Passenger 2.2.4 was released last week and we now have Ubuntu Hardy packages available in our repository.

Passenger 2.2.4 actually is just a small bug fix release for a memory leak in 2.2.3, but obviously brings all the benefits of 2.2.3 too.  A huge number of bugs have been fixed, particularly the “Broken Pipe” errors some sites under heavy loads were experiencing.

As usual, details on installing the packages from our repository are available on our wiki.

If you’re using Passenger and it’s making you happy, please do consider supporting its development by donating money in the form of an “Enterprise License” direct from Phusion, the company behind it.

Passenger 2.1.3 packages for Ubuntu Hardy 5 Apr 09

Phusion Passenger 2.1.3 has been released and we’ve updated our Ubuntu packages as usual.  Instructions in the usual place on our wiki.

Phusion Passenger 2.1.2 packages for Ubuntu 14 Mar 09

Following Friday’s release of Passenger 2.1.2 by the Phusion folks, we’ve updated our Ubuntu packages.  We’ve been testing version 2.1.1 packages for a little while now and they’ve been very stable, supporting both Rails 2.3 and older apps that still depend on Rack 0.4 (such as older Sinatra apps).

The details are on the usual page on our wiki.  If you have any problems or need any help, try our forums.

The new packages depend on new versions of the Ruby rack libraries (not the gem), but this is provided in our repository too and will be automatically installed. You need to install the fastthread gem yourself though.  Our repository provides a few other useful Hardy packages too.

We are only testing our packages against Ubuntu Hardy right now, but they should install and run fine on newer versions of Ubuntu too.

Remember, for maximum memory savings (and speed improvements) try our Ruby Enterprise Edition packages for Ubuntu Hardy (currently only 32bit packages available).

Passenger Ubuntu package updated 11 Jan 09

We’ve just built new versions of our Passenger Ubuntu package.  It’s still Passenger 2.0.6, but we tweaked the dependencies so you aren’t forced to use the Apache worker mpm (prefork should work just fine with Passenger).

We’re now also providing 64bit versions of the packages (the source of the 404 errors some of you reported when trying to install the package).

Documentation for the packages in the usual place on the wiki.

More Passenger news coming soon :)

Passenger 2.0.5 packages for Ubuntu 5 Dec 08

Following the recent 2.0.4 release of the Passenger Rails module for Apache, version 2.0.5 was released today by the Phusion team.  We’ve just released new Ubuntu Hardy packages for it.  If you’re already using the package from our repository, just apt-get update and upgrade.

Particularly of note, this fixes a deadlock bug using Passenger and global queueing with the Apache worker mpm.

As before, documentation for our packages is available on our Passenger wiki page.

Passenger 2.0.4 packages for Ubuntu 2 Dec 08

Version 2.0.4 of the Passenger Rails module for Apache was released today by the Phusion team.  We’ve just released new Ubuntu Hardy packages for it.  If you’re already using the package from our repository, just apt-get update and upgrade.

As before, documentation for our packages is available on our Passenger wiki page.

Passenger package for Ubuntu Hardy updated 28 Nov 08

I’d just like to announce the new version (2.0.3-1bbox4) of our Phusion Passenger/mod_rails package for Ubuntu Hardy (first announced back in May).

The previous version was faulty and resulted in mod_passenger.so being installed in the root dir (doh!) - I’m not sure when that bug crept in.

I’ve also updated the dependencies slightly - it will no longer require the rubygems package.  This helps those of you who have installed gems manually and would rather not use the Ubuntu packages.  If you didn’t install gems manually, you’ll need to explicitly specify the package now.

This, and a little more information can be found on our Passenger wiki page.

If you need help using these packages, or would like to feed back your experiences, go on over to the discussion forum.

Accepted into Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex

And if you weren’t aware, our package was accepted into the official Ubuntu repository (in the universe component) so if you’re using Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, you can use it straight away! (though it does require the packages rubygems).  Another step towards Ubuntu being the perfect rails stack. The source package page can be found here.

Next up, Ruby Enterprise Edition packages…

Now with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy powers 2 Oct 08

We’ve now switched to Ubuntu Hardy (8.04 LTS) as our default Brightbox image.

We’ve been using Hardy for months now to power our managed products and clusters and it’s proved very stable.  Some of the highlights:

• Ruby 1.8.6 as standard
• Apache 2.2.8 as standard
• Imagemagick 6.3 as standard (roll on the new rmagick gems!)
• Git 1.5.4 as standard
• Better virtualisation support - we can now live upgrade ram on Brightboxes without a reboot

It still comes pre-configured for Rails deployment and we’re still providing improved and extra packages where necessary (such as nginx 6.31).

We’re also still supporting our Ubuntu Dapper machines and can still pre-install Dapper for customers who are already using it on their other boxes.

Upgrading

Due to the way Brightboxes are built, you can’t easily upgrade your Dapper box to Hardy.  Currently, the only supported way to upgrade is to file a support ticket with us and we’ll rebuild your Brightbox as Hardy.  This will require downtime and redeployment of your app (a good time to move to the new Brightbox deployment gem if you haven’t already)

When Brightbox met Kodefoo 17 Aug 07

I popped over to the GeekUp Leeds event on Wednesday at The Lounge. It’s a fairly new event (in Leeds anyway) and it was my first time, but it was fun to catch up with Rob Lee (of Kodefoo). We’ve been using the now infamous Apache 2.2 package that Rob backported from Ubuntu Feisty to Dapper for quite some time now, but completely unaware that Rob/Kodefoo is based only a couple of miles away in Otley!

Such a small world, eh?