Routes.rb Exceptions/Exclusions

[mikerouse]

I'm a complete n00b to Rails and am with MediaTemple. I activated my Rails container on my site root and as a result I can no longer get to my blog, which sits at /blog/

Is there any way that I can add an exclusion for /blog/ in the routes.rb file so it doesn't process that /blog/ as part of the application and instead drops out ... or is that not how Ruby on Rails works?

The thing is, I realised my error by putting the app on site root but when I deleted the app and even deactivated the container I got a 503 Error when accessing on site root or /blog/... and the MediaTemple phone lines have been down all night.

Any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated.

[Arlen]

Depends. I don't know how MediaTemple is setting up their rails "containers." If it's Phusion Passenger-based, there may be some hope, because you can configure Passenger to ignore some directories. If they're setting it up to run under Mongrel, proceed to "Future reference."

I wonder if, since despite deleting the app you're getting errors, the .htaccess file is still trying to map your requests to a rails app. Have a look there and see if there's some rewrite rules there that are getting you.

Future reference: It's generally safer, especially for new experimenters, to install rails apps in a dedicated subdomain rather than their main work areas. Rails is meant to be an app, not just a few pages in a corner of a website, so it can get tricky trying to slip in chunks of other code outside of the "public" directory.

Which does give rise to an idea that *may* be useful: move your blog to /public/blog in the rails app and see what happens. I've never tried running anything like that out of the public area, so I have no idea how or even if it'll work, but if I absolutely needed rails and a non-rails blog to co-exist inn the same domain, it's one method I'd be sure to try.

Of course, a basic blog is trivial in Rails, so you could always decide to convert your blog to Rails at the same time, and your problem will go away. ;{>}

[mikerouse]

Thanks. That seems to have worked... almost.

I can see my blog on /blog/index.php, but not when I just do /blog/ or click on any of the permalinks.

I think that's going to be something to do with the .htaccess file as you were mentioning so I will look there first.

[mikerouse]

Yup. A simple .htaccess file uploaded to /blog/ has done the trick.

The file reads:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
# If requested resource does not exist as a file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
# and does not end with a period followed by a filetype
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !..+$
# and does not end with a slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$
# then add a trailing slash and redirect
RewriteRule (.*) $1/ [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress

Now when a visitor goes to my homepage they get RoR, but when they go to /blog/ they get WordPress

Thanks for your guidance Arlen. It is very much appreciated.

[Arlen]

Glad to be of help.