Thin: A Ruby HTTP Daemon That’s Faster Than Mongrel

Post by Peter Cooper

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Thin is a new Web server / daemon written in Ruby by Marc-André Cournoyer that uses the EventMachine, Rack, and Mongrel libraries. EventMachine makes it super fast at processing network I/O, Rack makes it easy to integrate with existing Ruby Web app frameworks, and Mongrel helps it parse HTTP. So, yes, the title is slightly misleading. Thin actually relies on Mongrel, but is ultimately faster than it, even against Mongrel’s EventMachine-enhanced guise.

You can get started with Thin with a simple sudo gem install thin and then you can use it with any Rack supporting Web app / framework. With a Rails app, for example, a simple thin start in the base directory will get things moving.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 4:01 am and is filed under Cool, Ruby on Rails, Tools. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

12 Responses to “Thin: A Ruby HTTP Daemon That’s Faster Than Mongrel”

1. #1
   

   
   Geoff Says:
   January 5th, 2008 at 4:40 am

   Here’s a link to the home page: http://code.macournoyer.com/thin/

2. #2
   

   
   Radarek Says:
   January 5th, 2008 at 4:25 pm

   For clarity: it uses only mongrel parser as we can read on Thin web “the root of Mongrel speed and security”.

3. #3
   

   
   FrankLamontagne Says:
   January 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

   Marc-André Cournoyer is a prolific contributor for the Rails community. I suggest everyone to start following him on his blog : http://macournoyer.wordpress.com

4. #4
   

   
   Stephen Says:
   January 5th, 2008 at 8:47 pm

   Cool!

   Here’s a quick rake task to make a thin cluster:

   rake thin:cluster:start
rake thin:cluster:stop

   For the start task, you can pass in the RAILS_ENV and the SIZE of the cluster (default 4).

   rake thin:cluster:start RAILS_ENV=production SIZE=10

   
namespace :thin do

   namespace :cluster do

   desc 'Start thin cluster'
   task :start => :environment do
   `cd #{RAILS_ROOT}`
   port_range = RAILS_ENV == 'development' ? 3 : 8
   (ENV['SIZE'] ? ENV['SIZE'].to_i : 4).times do |i|
   Thread.new do
   port = "#{port_range}%03d" % i
   str = "thin start -d -p#{port} -Ptmp/pids/thin-#{port}.pid"
   str += " -e#{RAILS_ENV}"
   puts "Starting server on port #{port}..."
   `#{str}`
   end
   end
   end

   desc 'Stop thin cluster'
   task :stop => :environment do
   `cd #{RAILS_ROOT}`
   port_range = RAILS_ENV == 'development' ? 3 : 8
   Dir.new("#{RAILS_ROOT}/tmp/pids").each do |file|
   Thread.new do
   if file.starts_with?("thin-#{port_range}")
   str = "thin stop -Ptmp/pids/#{file}"
   puts "Stopping server on port #{file[/\d+/]}..."
   `#{str}`
   end
   end
   end
   end

   end
end


5. #5
   

   
   macournoyer Says:
   January 5th, 2008 at 10:36 pm

   I swear I posted a comment yesterday!?

   Thx a lot Peter for talking about my project.

   Just to be clear, Thin doesn’t depend on Mongrel. But the Thin parser is a fork of the excellent Mongrel parser, customize for greater performances with Rack.

6. #6
   

   
   Robert Dempsey Says:
   January 6th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

   @macournoyer: how is the memory use with Thin (i.e. Thin taking up memory as time goes on)? Thanks.

7. #7
   

   
   McD Says:
   January 6th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

   I create a new Rails project and run thin with:

   rails depot
   cd depot
   thin start

   Then I browse to http://localhost:3000 I get this rrouting error:

   no route found to match “/” with {:method=>:get}

   If I start mongrel:
   script/server

   I get the typical “Welcome Aboard” Rails page.

   What’s missing in my process to use thin for the webserver?
   I may be back a rev on Rails fro example.

8. #8
   

   
   macournoyer Says:
   January 7th, 2008 at 12:15 am

   @Robert: Thin takes a little less memory then mongrel since it doesn’t use threads.

   @McD: yeah, that url rewriting part hasn’t been implemented yet, it’s on the TODO list though :) So page caching and the /index.html page won’t work for now but the rest should.

9. #9
   

   
   Derek Says:
   January 7th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

   I hope the Ruby/Rails sharks don’t cause Marc-André Cournoyer to become unemployed and homeless.

10. #10
    

    
    Floyd Price Says:
    January 7th, 2008 at 10:33 pm

    Maybe this new competition will force Zed back into mongrel development?

11. #11
    

    
    Rails Magnet Says:
    January 10th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    A new web server for rails - and it is Thin

    I’m looking forward to trying out Thin, a new web server for rails that’s built on Rack, Event Machine, and the Mongrel parser. The one downside of mongrel is that it does consume more memory that I would prefer and Thin may use somewhat less and de…

12. #12
    

    
    Mark Says:
    January 23rd, 2008 at 11:23 pm

    lol @ Derek… literally too, thanks for that :)