Phusion Corporate Blog

Phusion Passenger is an Apache and Nginx module for deploying Ruby web applications. It has a strong focus on ease of use, stability and performance. Phusion Passenger is built on top of tried-and-true, battle-hardened Unix technologies, yet at the same time introduces innovations not found in most traditional Unix servers. Since version 3.0 it can also run standalone without an external web server, making it not only easier for first-time users but also ideal on development environments.

Recent changes

Phusion Passenger is under constant maintenance and development. We are pleased to announce Phusion Passenger version 3.0.11. This is a bug fix release.

3.0.10 was skipped because we discovered a last-minute compilation problem on FreeBSD after having already pushed the gem to RubyGems.org.

[Nginx] Dropped support for Nginx versions older than 1.0.0

[Nginx] Fixed support for Nginx 1.1.4+

[Nginx, Standalone] Upgraded default Nginx version to 1.0.10

The previously default version was 1.0.5.

[Nginx] New option passenger_max_requests

This is equivalent to the PassengerMaxRequests option in the Apache version: Phusion Passenger will automatically shutdown a worker process once it has processed the specified number of requests. Contributed by Paul Kmiec.

[Apache] New option PassengerBufferResponse

The Apache version did not buffer responses. This could block the Ruby worker process in case of slow clients. We now enable response buffering by default. It can be turned off through this option. Feature contributed by Ryo Onodera.

Fixed remaining Ruby 1.9.3 compatibility problems

We already supported Ruby 1.9.3 since 3.0.8, but due to bugs in Ruby 1.9.3′s build system Phusion Passenger would fail to detect Ruby 1.9.3 features on some systems. Fixes issue #714.

Fixed a bug in PassengerPreStart

A regression was introduced in 3.0.8, causing the prespawn script to connect to the host name instead of to 127.0.0.1. Fix contributed by Andy Allan.

Fixed compatibility with GCC 4.6

Affected systems include Ubuntu 11.10.

Fixed various compilation problems.

Fixed some Ruby 1.9 encoding problems.

Fixed some Ruby 1.9.3 deprecation warnings.

Improved performance and solved some warnings on Xen systems by compiling with `-mno-tls-direct-seg-refs`. Patch contributed by Michał Pokrywka.

How do I upgrade to 3.0.11?

Via a gem

First install the gem with the following command:

gem install passenger

If you’re using Phusion Passenger for Apache or for Nginx, then re-run the Apache or Nginx module installer, whichever is appropriate:

passenger-install-apache2-module
passenger-install-nginx-module

At the end the installer will tell you to paste a configuration snippet into your web server config file. Replace the old snippet that you already had with this new one.

Phusion Passenger Standalone users don’t need to run anything else. Whenever you type

passenger start

it will automatically upgrade itself.

Via Ubuntu packages

John Leach from Brightbox has kindly provided Ubuntu packages for Phusion Passenger. The package is available from the Brightbox repository which you can find at:

http://apt.brightbox.net

Add the following line to the Third Party Software Sources:

deb http://apt.brightbox.net hardy main

(The simplest way to do that is to create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ containing the deb instruction, and then run ‘apt-get update’).

Once you’ve done this then you can install Phusion Passenger by running:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

-or-

sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

(Note that John is currently packaging 3.0.11, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the apt repository.)

Via RedHat/CentOS packages

YUM repositories with RPMs are maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Please note that Erik is currently packaging 3.0.11, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the yum repositories.

Step 1: install the release package

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 15:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/15/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 14:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:
(Note: these packages depend on EPEL.)

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/6/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Step 2: use Yum

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Final

Phusion Passenger is provided to the community for free. If you like Phusion Passenger, please consider sending us a donation. Thank you!

Phusion Passenger is an Apache and Nginx module for deploying Ruby web applications. It has a strong focus on ease of use, stability and performance. Phusion Passenger is built on top of tried-and-true, battle-hardened Unix technologies, yet at the same time introduces innovations not found in most traditional Unix servers. Since version 3.0 it can also run standalone without an external web server, making it not only easier for first-time users but also ideal on development environments.

Recent changes

Phusion Passenger is under constant maintenance and development. We are pleased to announce Phusion Passenger version 3.0.9. This is a bug fix release.

• [Nginx] Fixed a NULL pointer crash that occurs on HTTP/1.0 requests when the Host header isn’t given.
• Fixed deprecation warnings on RubyGems >= 1.6.
• Improved Union Station support stability.

How do I upgrade to 3.0.9?

Via a gem

First install the gem with the following command:

gem install passenger

If you’re using Phusion Passenger for Apache or for Nginx, then re-run the Apache or Nginx module installer, whichever is appropriate:

passenger-install-apache2-module
passenger-install-nginx-module

At the end the installer will tell you to paste a configuration snippet into your web server config file. Replace the old snippet that you already had with this new one.

Phusion Passenger Standalone users don’t need to run anything else. Whenever you type

passenger start

it will automatically upgrade itself.

Via Ubuntu packages

John Leach from Brightbox has kindly provided Ubuntu packages for Phusion Passenger. The package is available from the Brightbox repository which you can find at:

http://apt.brightbox.net

Add the following line to the Third Party Software Sources:

deb http://apt.brightbox.net hardy main

(The simplest way to do that is to create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ containing the deb instruction, and then run ‘apt-get update’).

Once you’ve done this then you can install Phusion Passenger by running:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

-or-

sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

(Note that John is currently packaging 3.0.9, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the apt repository.)

Via RedHat/CentOS packages

YUM repositories with RPMs are maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Please note that Erik is currently packaging 3.0.9, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the yum repositories.

Step 1: install the release package

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 15:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/15/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 14:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:
(Note: these packages depend on EPEL.)

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:

yum install http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/6/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Step 2: use Yum

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Final

Phusion Passenger is provided to the community for free. If you like Phusion Passenger, please consider sending us a donation. Thank you!

Phusion Passenger is an Apache and Nginx module for deploying Ruby web applications. It has a strong focus on ease of use, stability and performance. Phusion Passenger is built on top of tried-and-true, battle-hardened Unix technologies, yet at the same time introduces innovations not found in most traditional Unix servers. Since version 3.0 it can also run standalone without an external web server, making it not only easier for first-time users but also ideal on development environments.

Recent changes

Phusion Passenger is under constant maintenance and development. We are pleased to announce Phusion Passenger version 3.0.6. This is a bug fix release.

• Fixed various compilation problems such as XCode 4 support and OpenBSD support.
• Fixed various Union Station-related stability issues.
• Fixed an issue with host name detection on certain platforms.
• Improved error logging in various parts.
• The dependency on the file-tail library has been removed.
• During installation, check whether /tmp is mounted with ‘noexec’.
  Phusion Passenger’s installer relies on /tmp *not* being mounted with ‘noexec’. If it is then the installer will now show a helpful error message instead of bailing out in a confusing manner. Users can now tell the installer to use a different directory for storing temporary files by customizing the $TMPDIR environment variable.
• Phusion Passenger Standalone can now run Rackup files that are not named ‘config.ru’.
  The filename can be passed through the command line using the -R option.

How do I upgrade to 3.0.6?

Via a gem

First install the gem with the following command:

gem install passenger

If you’re using Phusion Passenger for Apache or for Nginx, then re-run the Apache or Nginx module installer, whichever is appropriate:

passenger-install-apache2-module
passenger-install-nginx-module

At the end the installer will tell you to paste a configuration snippet into your web server config file. Replace the old snippet that you already had with this new one.

Phusion Passenger Standalone users don’t need to run anything else. Whenever you type

passenger start

it will automatically upgrade itself.

Via Ubuntu packages

John Leach from Brightbox has kindly provided Ubuntu packages for Phusion Passenger. The package is available from the Brightbox repository which you can find at:

http://apt.brightbox.net

Add the following line to the Third Party Software Sources:

deb http://apt.brightbox.net hardy main

(The simplest way to do that is to create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ containing the deb instruction, and then run ‘apt-get update’).

Once you’ve done this then you can install Phusion Passenger by running:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

-or-

sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

(Note that John is currently packaging 3.0.6, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the apt repository.)

Via RedHat/CentOS packages

YUM repositories with RPMs are maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Please note that Erik is currently packaging 3.0.6, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the yum repositories.

Step 1: install the release package

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 14:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 13:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/13/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:
(Note: these packages depend on EPEL.)

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:
These packages will be available as soon as there is a stable beta of either CentOS 6 or SL 6 to use as a build platform.

Step 2: use Yum

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Final

Phusion Passenger is provided to the community for free. If you like Phusion Passenger, please consider sending us a donation. Thank you!

Phusion Passenger is an Apache and Nginx module for deploying Ruby web applications. It has a strong focus on ease of use, stability and performance. Phusion Passenger is built on top of tried-and-true, battle-hardened Unix technologies, yet at the same time introduces innovations not found in most traditional Unix servers. Since version 3.0 it can also run standalone without an external web server, making it not only easier for first-time users but also ideal on development environments.

Recent changes

Phusion Passenger is under constant maintenance and development. We are pleased to announce Phusion Passenger version 3.0.4. This is a bug fix release.

• [Apache] Changed mod_dir workaround hook priority
  Phusion Passenger temporarily disables mod_dir on all Phusion Passenger-handled requests in order to avoid conflicts. In order to do this it registers some Apache hooks with the APR_HOOK_MIDDLE priority, but it turned out that this breaks some other modules like mod_python. The hook priority has been changed to APR_HOOK_LAST to match mod_dir’s hook priorities. Issue reported by Jay Freeman.
• Added support for Union Station.
  Union Station is our new web application performance monitoring and behavior analysis service. Read more about it at the announcement.

• Some error messages have been improved.

How do I upgrade to 3.0.4?

Via a gem

First install the gem with the following command:

gem install passenger

If you’re using Phusion Passenger for Apache or for Nginx, then re-run the Apache or Nginx module installer, whichever is appropriate:

passenger-install-apache2-module
passenger-install-nginx-module

At the end the installer will tell you to paste a configuration snippet into your web server config file. Replace the old snippet that you already had with this new one.

Phusion Passenger Standalone users don’t need to run anything else. Whenever you type

passenger start

it will automatically upgrade itself.

Via Ubuntu packages

John Leach from Brightbox has kindly provided Ubuntu packages for Phusion Passenger. The package is available from the Brightbox repository which you can find at:

http://apt.brightbox.net

Add the following line to the Third Party Software Sources:

deb http://apt.brightbox.net hardy main

(The simplest way to do that is to create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ containing the deb instruction, and then run ‘apt-get update’).

Once you’ve done this then you can install Phusion Passenger by running:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

-or-

sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

(Note that John is currently packaging 3.0.4, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the apt repository.)

Via RedHat/CentOS packages

YUM repositories with RPMs are maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Please note that Erik is currently packaging 3.0.4, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the yum repositories.

Step 1: install the release package

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 14:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 13:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/13/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:
(Note: these packages depend on EPEL.)

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:
These packages will be available as soon as there is a stable beta of either CentOS 6 or SL 6 to use as a build platform.

Step 2: use Yum

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Final

Phusion Passenger is provided to the community for free. If you like Phusion Passenger, please consider sending us a donation. Thank you!

Phusion Passenger is an Apache and Nginx module for deploying Ruby web applications. It has a strong focus on ease of use, stability and performance. Phusion Passenger is built on top of tried-and-true, battle-hardened Unix technologies, yet at the same time introduces innovations not found in most traditional Unix servers. Since version 3.0 it can also run standalone without an external web server, making it not only easier for first-time users but also ideal on development environments.

Recent changes

Phusion Passenger is under constant maintenance and development. We are pleased to announce Phusion Passenger version 3.0.3. This is a bug fix release.

[Nginx] Preferred Nginx version upgraded to 0.8.54

The previous preferred version was 0.8.53.

PATH_INFO and REQUEST_URI now contain the original escaped URI

Phusion Passenger passes the URI, as reported by Apache/Nginx, to application processes through the PATH_INFO and REQUEST_URI variables. These variables are supposed to contain the original, unescaped URI, e.g. /clubs/%C3%BC. Both Apache and Nginx thought that it would be a good idea to unescape the URI before passing it to modules like Phusion Passenger, thereby causing PATH_INFO and REQUEST_URI to contain the unescaped URI, e.g. /clubs/ü. This causes all sorts of encoding problems. We now manually re-escape the URI when setting PATH_INFO and REQUEST_URI. Issue #404.

The installer no longer detects directories as potential commands

Previously the installer would look in $PATH for everything that’s executable, including directories. If one has /usr/lib in $PATH and a directory /usr/lib/gcc exists then the installer would recognize /usr/lib/gcc as the compiler. We now explicitly check whether the item is also a file.

PseudoIO now responds to #to_io

Phusion Passenger sets STDERR to a PseudoIO object in order to capture anything written to STDERR during application startup. This breaks some libraries which expect STDERR to respond to #to_io. This has now been fixed. Issue #607.

Fixed various other minor bugs

See the git commit log for details.

How do I upgrade to 3.0.3?

Via a gem

First install the gem with the following command:

gem install passenger

If you’re using Phusion Passenger for Apache or for Nginx, then re-run the Apache or Nginx module installer, whichever is appropriate:

passenger-install-apache2-module
passenger-install-nginx-module

At the end the installer will tell you to paste a configuration snippet into your web server config file. Replace the old snippet that you already had with this new one.

Phusion Passenger Standalone users don’t need to run anything else. Whenever you type

passenger start

it will automatically upgrade itself.

Via Ubuntu packages

John Leach from Brightbox has kindly provided Ubuntu packages for Phusion Passenger. The package is available from the Brightbox repository which you can find at:

http://apt.brightbox.net

Add the following line to the Third Party Software Sources:

deb http://apt.brightbox.net hardy main

(The simplest way to do that is to create a file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ containing the deb instruction, and then run ‘apt-get update’).

Once you’ve done this then you can install Phusion Passenger by running:

sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-passenger

-or-

sudo apt-get install nginx-brightbox

(Note that John is currently packaging 3.0.3, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the apt repository.)

Via RedHat/CentOS packages

YUM repositories with RPMs are maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Please note that Erik is currently packaging 3.0.3, so it might take a while before this release shows up in the yum repositories.

Step 1: install the release package

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 14:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 13:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/13/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:
(Note: these packages depend on EPEL.)

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:
These packages will be available as soon as there is a stable beta of either CentOS 6 or SL 6 to use as a build platform.

Step 2: use Yum

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Final

Phusion Passenger is provided to the community for free. If you like Phusion Passenger, please consider sending us a donation. Thank you!

Erik Ogan has posted an update on the recent YUM repository’s downtime:

Last Tuesday the server running the Stealthy Monkeys RPM repository suffered a catastrophic failure. We’ve had many setbacks getting it up and running again. I’ll spare you the details.

In light of the current situation, and the slow progress toward resolution, I’ve put a temporary repository up on other hardware. It isn’t the complete repository, but it does have up-to-date packages for all the supported distributions, versions, and architectures.

I’ve updated the DNS to point to the new server, but if you’re still having trouble accessing it (probably because the record is cached), we also set up an alias at http://passenger.haq.net. Either one should be able to install packages*.

I (Erik) would like to apologize for the inconvenience this has caused. We’ll keep you posted about developments.

[*] If your DNS is tenacious, you may have to temporarily edit the /etc/yum.repos.d/passenger.repo file to point at the haq.net mirror. We’re looking at a better way to locate the mirrors file.

We are pleased to announce native Linux packages for RedHat/Fedora derived RPM distributions, including RHEL, Fedora, CentOS, and ScientificLinux. Installation and updates can be accomplished via yum, and the passenger-release package includes all of the necessary yum configuration.

Installation

The easiest way to install Phusion Passenger and keep it up to date is to install the passenger-release package from the main repository:

Fedora Core 14:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/14/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

Fedora Core 13:

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/fedora/13/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 5 / CentOS 5 / ScientificLinux 5:

Note: these packages depend on EPEL.

rpm -Uvh http://passenger.stealthymonkeys.com/rhel/5/passenger-release.noarch.rpm

RHEL 6 / CentOS 6 / ScientificLinux 6:

These packages will be available as soon as there is a stable beta of either CentOS 6 or SL 6 to use as a build platform.

From there you can use Yum to install packages. For example, try one of these:

yum install nginx-passenger

or

yum install mod_passenger

or

yum install passenger-standalone

Building your own packages

There are instructions for building your own packages and Yum repositories in the rpm directory ReadMe within the GitHub repository.

Additional Information

These packages are currently being maintained by Erik Ogan and Stealthy Monkeys Consulting. Questions, comments, patches, and pull requests are always welcome.