README in ebb-0.0.4 vs README in ebb-0.1.0
- old
+ new
@@ -1,92 +1,83 @@
# A Web Server Called *Ebb*
Ebb aims to be a small and fast web server specifically for hosting
-web frameworks like Rails, Merb, and in the future Django.
+dynamic web applications. It is not meant to be a full featured web server
+like Lighttpd, Apache, or Nginx. Rather it should be used in multiplicity
+behind a load balancer and a front-end server. It is not meant to serve static files in production.
-It is not meant to be a full featured web server like Lighttpd, Apache, or
-Nginx. Rather it should be used in multiplicity behind a
-[load balancer](http://brainspl.at/articles/2007/11/09/a-fair-proxy-balancer-for-nginx-and-mongrel)
-and a front-end server. It is not meant to serve static files in production.
+At one level Ebb is a minimalist C library that ties together the
+[Mongrel state machine](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/browser/tags/rel_1-0-1/ext/http11/http11_parser.rl)
+and [libev](http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html) event loop. One can use
+this library to drive a web application written in C. (Perhaps for embedded
+devices?) However, most people will be interested in the binding of this
+library to the Ruby programming language. The binding provides a
+[Rack](http://rack.rubyforge.org/) server interface that allows it to host
+Rails, Merb, or other frameworks.
-## Design
+A Python-WSGI binding is under development.
-The design is similar to the [Evented
-Mongrel](http://swiftiply.swiftcore.org/mongrel.html) web server; except
-instead of using [EventMachine](http://rubyeventmachine.com/) to drive
-network interactions, the Ebb web server handles sockets directly in C and
-employs the use of the [libev](http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/libev.html)
-event loop.
+## Install
-Connections are processed as follows:
-
-1. libev loops and waits for incoming connections.
-
-2. When Ebb receives a connection, it passes the request into the
- [mongrel state machine](http://mongrel.rubyforge.org/browser/tags/rel_1-0-1/ext/http11/http11_parser.rl)
- which securely parses the headers.
-
-3. When the request is complete, Ebb passes the information to a user
- supplied callback.
-
-4. The Ruby binding supplying this callback transforms the
- request into a [Rack](http://rack.rubyforge.org/) compatible `env` hash
- and passes it on a Rack adapter.
-
-Because Ebb is written mostly in C, other language bindings can be added to
-make it useful to Non-Ruby frameworks. For example, a Python WSGI interface is
-forthcoming.
-
-## Download
-
The Ruby binding is available as a Ruby Gem. It can be install by executing
- `gem install ebb`
+ gem install ebb
-Ebb depends on having glib2 headers and libraries installed. (Easily available
-on any UNIX system.) Manual download can be done at
+Ebb depends on having glib2 headers and libraries installed. For example, in
+Macintosh if one is using Darwin ports then the following should do the trick
+
+ port install glib2
+
+Downloads are available at
the [RubyForge project page](http://rubyforge.org/frs/?group_id=5640).
-## Why?
+## Running
-Because by building the server in C one is able to side-step the
-limitations on speed of many scripting languages. Inefficiencies are okay
-for quick and beautiful code, but for production web servers that might handle
-thousands of requests a second, an attempt should be made to be as efficient
-as possible in processing connections.
+Using the executable `ebb_rails` one can start Ebb with a Rails project. Use
+`ebb_rails -h` to see all of the options but to start one can try
-Following are some benchmarks. Please take these measurements with a grain
-of salt. Benchmarks like these are notorious for presenting an inaccurate
-or highly slanted view of how software performs.
-The code for these can be found in the `benchmark` directory.
+ cd my_rails_project/
+ ebb_rails start
-
+When using `ebb_rails` from monit, the monitrc entry might look like this:
-This shows how the web servers perform with respect to throughput (using a
-simple Rack application). Concurrency is at 50 clients.
+ check process myApp4000
+ with pidfile /home/webuser/myApp/current/tmp/ebb.4000.pid
+ start program = "/usr/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ebb_rails start -d -e production -p 4000 -P /home/webuser/myApp/current/tmp/ebb.4000.pid -c /home/webuser/myApp/current" as uid webuser and gid webuser
+ stop program = "/usr/bin/ruby /usr/bin/ebb_rails stop -P /home/webuser/myApp/current/tmp/ebb.4000.pid" as uid webuser and gid webuser
+ if totalmem > 120.0 MB for 2 cycles then restart
+ if loadavg(5min) greater than 10 for 8 cycles then restart
+ group myApp
-
+To use Ebb with a different framework you will have to do a small amount of
+hacking at the moment! :)
-A simple concurrent clients benchmark serving a *hello world* page.
+## Speed
-
+Because Ebb-Ruby handles most of the processing in C, it is able to do work
+often times more efficiently than other Ruby language web servers.
-Ebb processes uploads before handing it over to the web application. This
-allows Ebb to continue to process other clients while the upload is in
-progress. The cliff at 40k here is because Ebb's internal request
-buffer is set at 40 kilobytes before it writes to file.
+
+Ebb-Ruby can handle threaded processing better than the other 'evented'
+servers. This won't be of any benefit to Rails applications because Rails
+places a lock around each request that wouldn't allow concurrent processing
+anyway. In Merb, for example, Ebb's thread handling will allow Ebb instances
+to handle larger loads. [More](http://four.livejournal.com/848525.html)
+
## Contributions
-Contributions (patches, criticism, advice) are very welcome! The source code
-is hosted at [repo.or.cz](http://repo.or.cz/w/ebb.git). It can be retrieved
+Contributions (patches, criticism, advice) are very welcome!
+Please send all to to
+[the mailing list](http://groups.google.com/group/ebbebb).
+
+The source code
+is hosted [github](http://github.com/ry/ebb/tree/master). It can be retrieved
by executing
-`git clone http://repo.or.cz/r/ebb.git`
+ git clone git://github.com/ry/ebb.git
-I intend to keep the C code base very small, so do email me before writing any
-large additions. Here are some features that I would like to add:
-* Streaming responses!
+Here are some features that I would like to add:
* HTTP 1.1 Expect/Continue (RFC 2616, sections 8.2.3 and 10.1.1)
* A parser for multipart/form-data
* Optimize and clean up upload handling
* Option to listen on unix sockets instead of TCP
* Python binding