Apache giving 503 for SSL request to Rails

I have a Rails 3 app using Ruby 1.9.2 confi开发者_高级运维gured to work on the Linux server. The uses SSL to access all there resources. Now, I am dealing with the SSL so that I can display the application on the client side. The user LDAP credentials are being passed to the Linux server through instructions in the httpd.conf file. I can see the handshake in the SSL_error logs. I also know the cert information is being passed because I can see the information in the SSL_client logs and also in the Rails WEBrick server console as my application boots (http://www.nearinfinity.com/blogs/chris_rohr/configuring_webrick_to_use_ssl.html). However when I go to the Https port on my desktop I get the browser error "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable". I know the cert was passed to the browser because I get the "lock" icon.

Can someone help me understand the 503 error?

A 503 error like that from your front-end usually means your back-end (Mongrel? Webrick?) is down or misconfigured in terms of ports.