diffrence between mongrel and mongrel cluster?

Can anybody provide a brief explanatio开发者_运维百科n of the differences between mongrel and mongrel cluster?

Mongrel is a web server that can handle one request at a time. In order to handle multiple requests, you want to run multiple mongrels. A proxy server (i.e. apache) will sit in front of the servers and listen on port 80 and then relay the web requests to an available mongrel. Mongrel cluster is a gem that manages the launching of the mongrels, stopping, restarting and running it in the right environment with the right user. It abstracts the individual mongrels as workers so you don't need to worry about them (until things go wrong). All of that is managed by a configuration file usually located with the application.

Tass and Larry K are correct though. If you are looking at a new setup, think about passenger or unicorn. Both are great, unicorn is a bit more complicated and I would not recommend it to a beginner.

Mongrel cluster is multiple mongrel instances. Then the web server rotates amongst them to handle incoming calls.

But these days the cool kids tend to use Passenger (and often the related Enterprise Ruby too)

Mongrel cluster is somewhat of outdated, today you use unicorn. The github guys switched too.