Updated NGINX Passenger packages will follow shortly (they’ll be available via a separate ppa)

We’ve also fixed the dependency problems that occurred in the past, where a newer version of Passenger broke the older NGINX packages. These NGINX packages now strictly depend on the Passenger packages, and we’ve put them in their own Launchpad archive so they’re always guaranteed to work (even if they ever lag behind the Apache packages).

You can add the PPA and install NGINX like this:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:brightbox/passenger-nginx
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx-full

You’ll then need to enable the Passenger module, which can be usually done like this:

cat <<EOF > /etc/nginx/conf.d/passenger.conf
passenger_root /usr/lib/phusion-passenger;
EOF

We’ve also added our other Apache Passenger packages to Launchpad too (with Hardy support), just use:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:brightbox/passenger

We’ll keep our own apt repository in sync with Launchpad for Hardy and Lucid too, in case you prefer that (use the passenger-nginx component for the nginx passenger packages).

Happy Passengering! (I’m pretty certain that’s not a real verb. It might be a proper verb. I’m pretty certain there is no such thing as a proper verb).

We now have Passenger 3.0.0-pre3 packages available for Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) and Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy). As they’re pre-release versions, we don’t recommend them in production just yet and have put them in their own repository to prevent any accidental upgrades.

If you’re not already a Brightbox customer, then you’ll need to set up base access to our apt repository first.

Otherwise, just add the new passenger-testing repository (switch “lucid” to “hardy” if you’re on Hardy):

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.brightbox.net lucid passenger-testing" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brightbox-passenger-testing.list'

Then you can upgrade/install 3.0.0-1bbox1~pre3

apt-get update
apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

Passenger now has a native library, which depends on your version of ruby. For simplicity, these packages currently require the ruby1.8 packages to be installed. You can, of course, switch to ruby1.9 and passenger will auto-compile the necessary native support for you. We’ll be providing packages for 1.9 support soon, so you won’t need to rely on the auto-compiling.

This package won’t actually support Rails 3 just yet though as we’ve yet to package and test the librack 1.1.0, which Rails 3 depends on.  We’re working on it now and once we’re happy with it we’ll add new packages to our repository as usual.

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.

nginx … is vulnerable to a buffer underflow when processing certain HTTP requests. An attacker can use this to execute arbitrary code with the rights of the worker process  or possibly perform denial of service attacks by repeatedly crashing worker processes via a specially crafted URL in an HTTP request.

New versions of our nginx packages that address this security vulnerability are now available.  nginx 0.6.39 (with the fair balancer module) is available from the Brightbox apt repositories – running the following command will get you the latest version:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx

Our more experimental nginx-brightbox package has also been upgraded to 0.6.39.  This includes a number of nginx addons, such as the upload module, geoip module, and Phusion Passenger 2.0.5.

This new version of Passenger brings a train-load of NGINX fixes, so our Passenger enabled nginx-brightbox package has been updated too and is available in our testing repository.  More details on using our testing repository here in the 2.2.1 announcement blog post.

We’ve had to restructure the way our Ubuntu packages are built to enable installation of the NGINX extension, so needs more extensive testing than usual.  The packages are now available for Ubuntu Hardy in our testing repository.

You’ll need to add our testing repository to your apt sources list. And if you’re not on a Brightbox, you’ll need to import our key and add our stable repository too.

Once you’ve done that, you can install the new version of Passenger.  If you’re wanting to just install the Apache version:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

This will pull in a new dependency, passenger-common.

If you just want to get stuck in with the new NGINX support, install the nginx-brightbox package:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

This will also pull in the passenger-common dependency. This is NGINX 0.6.36 plus some useful modules: upload progress, upstream fair, geoip, ey-balancer and access key. It will replace any other NGINX packages you have installed (NGINX does not support dynamic modules like Apache).

You can install both Apache and NGINX side by side, but you’ll obviously need to run them on different ports.

The 2.2.1 Apache package has already had quite a bit of testing by us, but the NGINX package has had very little. We’ve already come across a Passenger bug with reloading NGINX (reported here), though we expect this will be fixed quickly.  So basically, these are good to play with but not for production just yet.

If you need any help with these packages, try our Passenger support forum.

It’s in our testing repository at the moment so give it a whirl (it will of course install on any Ubuntu Dapper box, not just Brightboxes).  We have a page on the Brightbox wiki on how to configure NGINX for your Brightbox apps too (which can easily be adjusted to any NGINX install really).

If you’re playing with any of this beta stuff (like these packages or the Brightbox gem) and have feedback or need help, feel free to discuss it on the Brightbox-beta Google group that i just set up.