Inspiration for this snippet was taken from this post on the Sphinx forum, plus this blog post.

Compiling Sphinx

First install the prerequisites:

   1  sudo aptitude install libmysql++-dev libmysqlclient15-dev checkinstall

Next download sphinx, libstemmer and install everything and the fish:

   1  cd /usr/local/src
   2  
   3  wget http://sphinxsearch.com/downloads/sphinx-0.9.8-rc2.tar.gz
   4  tar zxvf sphinx-0.9.8-rc2.tar.gz 
   5  
   6  cd sphinx-0.9.8-rc2/
   7  
   8  # Add stemming support for Swedish, Finnish and other fun languages.
   9  wget http://snowball.tartarus.org/dist/libstemmer_c.tgz
  10  tar zxvf libstemmer_c.tgz
  11  
  12  ./configure --with-libstemmer
  13  make
  14  
  15  make install

Configure Sphinx

Create a sphinx.conf file in your Rails config directory, as described here, or use this template.

Install acts_as_sphinx plugin

   1  ./script/plugin install http://svn.datanoise.com/acts_as_sphinx

Add acts_as_sphinx to your model:

   1  class Documents
   2     acts_as_sphinx
   3  end

Indexing content

   1  rake sphinx:index
   2  
   3  (in /var/www/xxx.com/releases/20080429144230)
   4  Sphinx 0.9.8-rc2 (r1234)
   5  Copyright (c) 2001-2008, Andrew Aksyonoff
   6  
   7  using config file './sphinx.conf'...
   8  indexing index 'xxx.com'...
   9  collected 5077 docs, 0.6 MB
  10  sorted 0.1 Mhits, 100.0% done
  11  total 5077 docs, 632096 bytes
  12  total 0.160 sec, 3950427.25 bytes/sec, 31729.86 docs/sec

Reindexing content

sphinx:index shouldn’t be run while the searchd process is running, so use rake sphinx:rotate instead, which restarts the searchd process after indexing.

Starting the daemon

   1  mkdir -m 664 /var/log/sphinx
   2  rake sphinx:start
   3  
   4  (in /var/www/xxx.com/releases/20080429144230)
   5  Sphinx 0.9.8-rc2 (r1234)
   6  Copyright (c) 2001-2008, Andrew Aksyonoff
   7  
   8  using config file './sphinx.conf'...
   9  Sphinx searchd server started.

Searching

   1  Documents.find_with_sphinx 'why did I write this'

http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/

   1  cd /etc/mysql
   2  wget http://garr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/automysqlbackup/automysqlbackup.sh.2.5
   3  
   4  ln -s automysqlbackup.sh.2.5 backup-script
   5  chmod 740 backup-script
   6  
   7  vim backup-script

Next tell cron to run it 4 in the morning:

   1  crontab -e

Add the following line:

   1  0 4 * * * /etc/mysql/backup-script

I run this nat.sh script whenever I need to share my 3g connection to other computers in the switch I’m plugged into. Please note that it resets existing iptables rules.

   1  #!/bin/bash
   2  iptables --flush            
   3  iptables --table nat --flush
   4  iptables --delete-chain
   5  iptables --table nat --delete-chain
   6  
   7  echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
   8  
   9  internal=eth0
  10  external=ppp0
  11  /sbin/iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ${external} -j MASQUERADE
  12  /sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i ${external} -o ${internal} -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
  13  /sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -i ${internal} -o ${external} -j ACCEPT

Git is a good alternative to Mercurial, and of course SVN or CVS if you’re still using stone age tools, so in this post I’ll show you how to compile, install and use git with Rails.

Installing git on Mac OS X

First compile and install git:

   1  cd /usr/local/src
   2  wget http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.4.4.tar.bz2
   3  tar jxvf git-1.5.4.4.tar.bz2
   4  cd git-1.5.4.4
   5  make prefix=/usr/local all
   6  make prefix=/usr/local test && echo $?
   7  sudo make prefix=/usr/local install

Installing git on Debian

On a Debian installation install git by first executing the following commands:

$ sudo apt-get install git-core

Note that the package name is git-core not git.

If you want the latest and greatest version, you first need to install the dependencies (note that you can leave out tk and expat):

   1  sudo apt-get install curl
   2  sudo apt-get install libcurl3
   3  sudo apt-get install libcurl3-dev
   4  sudo apt-get install tk8.4
   5  sudo apt-get install cpio expat
   6  sudo apt-get install zlib
   7  sudo apt-get install build-essential
   8  sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev 
   9  sudo apt-get install asciidoc
  10  sudo apt-get install xmlto

Then compile and install:

   1  NO_EXPAT=yes NO_SVN_TESTS=yes NO_IPV6=yes NO_TCLTK=yes make -j2 prefix=/usr all
   2  NO_EXPAT=yes NO_SVN_TESTS=yes NO_IPV6=yes NO_TCLTK=yes make -j2 prefix=/usr install

Configuring git

Run these commands to tell git your name and email:

   1  git config --global user.name "u name"
   2  git config --global user.email x@x.com

Otherwise, you might get this error:

   1  *** Environment problem:
   2  *** Your name cannot be determined from your system services (gecos).
   3  *** You would need to set GIT_AUTHOR_NAME and GIT_COMMITTER_NAME
   4  *** environment variables; otherwise you won't be able to perform
   5  *** certain operations because of "empty ident" errors.
   6  *** Alternatively, you can use user.name configuration variable.
   7  
   8  fatal: empty ident  <........@........com> not allowed
   9  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

If you like colorized command output execute these commands:

   1  git config --global color.diff auto
   2  git config --global color.status auto
   3  git config --global color.branch auto

Using git

If all goes well, change to your project directory and run the following commands:

   1  git init

This creates the git repository, so we’re now ready to start adding files to it, but first we need to create the git ignore file, which tells git to ignore certain files completely:

   1  cat <<EOF<<EOF > .gitignore 
   2  config/database.yml
   3  db/*.sqlite3
   4  log/*.log
   5  tmp/**/*
   6  .DS_Store
   7  doc/api
   8  doc/app
   9  EOFEOF

By default git doesn’t add empty directories—sucks if you ask me—so we’ll create a dummy file in all empty directories with the find and touch commands:

   1  find . \( -type d -empty \) -and \( -not -regex ./\.git.* \) -exec touch {}/.gitignore \; 

Importing files

We’re now ready to start adding and commiting files, so without thinking execute:

   1  git add .
   2  git commit -m 'initial import'

This creates the git repository, adds and commits all files that are in the current folder.

Using remote repositories

If you’re like me you’ll want to use a remote repository, so let’s continue the exercise by creating the repository folder on the remote server (Note that commands are executed on the remote server from now on):

   1  mkdir /var/lib/git/repositories/project_name

We want the folder to be accessible by users belonging to the git group only:

   1  addgroup git
   2  chown root.git /var/lib/git/repositories/project_name
   3  chmod 770 /var/lib/git/repositories/project_name

Now add yourself—or the user you’ll be using to connect to the remote server—to the git group:

   1  usermod -a -G git your_username

Alternatively create a new user:

   1  useradd -g git your_username

Now we’re finally ready to copy the local repository to the remote server, which is done with the scp command (Note that commands are executed locally again from now on):

   1  scp -rp .git user@server://var/lib/git/repositories/project_name

To let git know that this repository exists we’ll use the git remote command:

   1  git remote add project_name ssh://server/var/lib/git/repositories/project_name

This adds the information to .git/config, which might be good to have a quick look at.

Note that if you’re using a non-standard SSH port you need to add the following to your ~/.ssh/config file:

   1  Host server
   2    Port 1234

Commit files and push them to the remote server

Now change a file and commit and push the changes to the remote server:

   1  git commit -m "Me be sleepy"
   2  git push project_name

If you get an error such as this it means you need to install git:

   1  $ git push project_name
   2  username@server's password: 
   3  sh: git-receive-pack: command not found
   4  fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

That’s all…

Miscellaneous problems

error: unable to create temporary sha1 filename ./objects/obj_FUu2jb: Permission denied

Resources

http://jointheconversation.org/railsgit

http://devblog.michaelgalero.com/2007/12/17/my-git-notes-for-rails/

http://railscasts.com/episodes/96

http://groups.google.com/group/rails-oceania/browse_thread/thread/2c8611dc93917952/e175f72310823547

http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/tutorial.html

http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and-secure-way

   1  sudo vim /etc/init.d/nginx

Paste in the following (remember to run ‘set :paste’ in VIM when pasting):

   1  #! /bin/sh
   2  ##
   3  # nginx start script
   4  ##
   5  
   6  PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
   7  DAEMON=/usr/local/sbin/nginx
   8  NAME=nginx
   9  DESC=nginx
  10  
  11  if [ ! -x $DAEMON ]
  12  then
  13     echo "Couldn't find $DAEMON. Please set path to DAEMON."
  14     exit 0
  15  fi
  16  
  17  
  18  # Include nginx defaults if available
  19  if [ -f /etc/default/nginx ] ; then
  20  	. /etc/default/nginx
  21  fi
  22  
  23  set -e
  24  
  25  case "$1" in
  26    start)
  27  	echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
  28  	start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \
  29  		--exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
  30  	echo "$NAME."
  31  	;;
  32    stop)
  33  	echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
  34  	start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \
  35  		--exec $DAEMON
  36  	echo "$NAME."
  37  	;;
  38    restart|force-reload)
  39  	echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
  40  	start-stop-daemon --stop --pidfile \
  41  		/var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON
  42  	sleep 1
  43  	start-stop-daemon --start --pidfile \
  44  		/var/run/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
  45  	echo "$NAME."
  46  	;;
  47    reload)
  48        echo -n "Reloading $DESC configuration: "
  49        start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --pidfile /var/run/$NAME.pid \
  50            --exec $DAEMON
  51        echo "$NAME."
  52        ;;
  53    *)
  54  	N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
  55  	echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|force-reload}" >&2
  56  	exit 1
  57  	;;
  58  esac
  59  
  60  exit 0

Now make the script executable with this command:

   1  sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/nginx

Lastly, run this command to make the script run when the server starts and stops:

   1  sudo /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults