From: Aaron Patterson <aaron_patterson@...>
Date: 2006-03-19T09:14:42+09:00
Subject: Auto Selecting ports

Hi, I'm trying to start up a WEBrick server on an unused port on my
system.  On linux, I just tell it to use port 0, and I'm assigned an
open port.  This doesn't work on OS X for some reason.  Does anyone have
a better way to do this?  Here's my test code:

require 'webrick'

server = WEBrick::HTTPServer.new(
  :Port           => 0,
  :DocumentRoot   => Dir::pwd + "/htdocs"
)

puts "Using port: #{server[:Port]}"

trap("INT") { server.stop }
server.start

On linux, I get this:

[2006-03-18 15:56:25] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2006-03-18 15:56:25] INFO  ruby 1.8.4 (2005-12-24) [i386-linux]
Using port: 33278
[2006-03-18 15:56:25] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=22031
port=33278

And I can connect to that port.  On OS X, I get this:

[2006-03-18 15:56:21] INFO  WEBrick 1.3.1
[2006-03-18 15:56:21] INFO  ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) [powerpc-darwin8.0]
Using port: 0
[2006-03-18 15:56:21] INFO  WEBrick::HTTPServer#start: pid=14353 port=0

And I cannot connect to port 0.  Does anyone have any suggestions for
me?  I would appreciate any help I can get.  Thanks!

--Aaron