This short cut is an introduction and guide to Mongrel, a fast, versatile RubyWeb server. If you build or manage Web applications, this will be a usefulreference as you set up and use Mongrel in your development and productionenvironments, as well as a handbook for how you can extend Mongrel to suityour own needs.

In addition to covering how to use and extend Mongrel, we also review anumber of topics that we consider "Best Practices" for modern software development,deployment, and performance testing. We discuss these in thecontext of using Mongrel, but they should be considered applicable to anysoftware project. Our own work has always benefited from seeing the techniquesof others, so we hope that sharing the experience, approach, andphilosophy that went into designing and developing Mongrel will be interestingand helpful for your own pursuits.

Section 1: What This Short Cut Covers 4

Section 2: Introduction 6

Section 3: Getting Started 13

Section 4: Configurations 20

Section 5: Production Deployment 37

Section 6: Extending Mongrel 60

Section 7: Debugging 79

Section 8: Performance 90

Section 9: Security 96

Resources 103

Acknowledgments 105

About the Authors 106