custom directory listing handler in ruby for nginx

I just found this question on serverfault which details how to create a custom directory listing handler for nginx with a php script. I would like to do the same thing but with a ruby script.

location /test/ {
  error_page 404 = /webdir/handler.php;
  return 404;
}

My questio开发者_运维技巧n is, would I simply do the same thing but reference the handler.rb instead of handler.php, I mean, will nginx automatically know to evaluate the ruby script's and output to the user's browser? So do I simply create a script that does some puts calls, or what is the preferred way of doing this? I don't know much about rack or sinatra, but is this a situation in which either would come in handy? I do have passenger installed.

I would most likely want to include css in this to make the listing look nice, and I would possibly prefer to create the structure in haml or erb. I don't mind if the structure template and css would need to be inline in the same handler.rb, though if it's possible to separate it out into files that would be beautiful.

Finally, I would like this to apply to the mysite.com/downloads/ directory as well as all of its sub-directories. What would be the preferred location directive? I saw that

location ~ /$

is to make it work on all directories, but I only want it to apply to downloads/ and any of its subdirectories. I think it'd be a simple regex modification but I'd rather be sure.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

No, nginx will not automatically evaluate Ruby scripts. Your best bet is to set up a handler as a Rack application of some sort (pretty much all Ruby web frameworks or handlers are Rack applications these days, including Sinatra and Rails) and then use passenger or a Ruby server like unicorn set up as an nginx proxy.

Given your additional requirements, I would start by looking at Sinatra.