From: Aredridel <aredridel@...>
Date: 2003-07-06T00:40:51+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby web hosting survey.

> > Or are there other issues involved with running Ruby?
> 
> The only issues I see are possibly security problems when trying to
> configure it using suexec and different rights per vhost etc.

Well, mod_ruby and suexec are mutually exclusive -- mod_ruby runs things
in core, so there's no chance to change user ids.  If you run ruby as a
CGI, then it's just as easy if not easier than running PHP with suexec,
but you don't get the nice integration with apache's request model. 
Caveat usor.

I imagine it would be possible to have a mod_ruby+drb solution where
mod_ruby pre-runs some code for each hit, forks, changes user IDs, sets
up DRb objects for the apache request and emulates that environment
despite the fact that it's now two processes with different uids.  It
obviously won't be as efficient as mod_ruby, but anything that forks
won't be.

> Is there anyone who knows more about it?

I guess that would be me... seven years of writing web software in free
scripting languages and helping set them up securely on the ISP's side
is some qualification. 

I guess the one thing that PHP has over Ruby for web based programs is
that users can't modify the interpreter state... but that's limits in
mod_php, not in mod_ruby.

Ari