Monit and Mongrel posted by Dave Rothlisberger @ Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:53:39 -0000

Dave Rothlisberger — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:53:39 -0000

If monit doesn’t seem to be starting your mongrels, check the mongrel log; from here I learned that the HOME path wasn’t set.

My start and stop monit commands both set the PATH and HOME environment variables, and monit now happily starts/stops my mongrels:

start = ”/usr/bin/env PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin HOME=/home/rails mongrel_rails cluster::start -C /home/rails/app/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—clean—only 8000”

stop = ”/usr/bin/env PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin HOME=/home/rails mongrel_rails cluster::stop -C /home/rails/app/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—clean—only 8000”

HTH

Monit and Mongrel posted by Jay @ Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:31:13 -0000

Jay — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 20:31:13 -0000

The answer for me at long last was to set GEM_HOME in the mongrel.monitrc file. So
start program = “env GEM_HOME=<path to gems> /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails cluster::start -C …

Monit and Mongrel posted by Jay @ Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:41:08 -0000

Jay — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 05:41:08 -0000

Frank, I tried your solution by linking /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails to /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems/bin/mongrel_rails which is how my Debian Etch config is set up. Still experiencing the same issues you described on the 14th. Here’s some more data:

I’ve included the mongrel.monitrc file I’m using. If you issue the start
program and stop program commands shown in that file from the command
line, they work fine, regardless of what directory you issue them
from. Interestingly, calling “monit status” does show that the
test3_8001 process is being monitored and shows the correct statistics
for uptime, etc. However, when you run “monit restart test3_8001”
there is a failure. “monit status” eventually shows “Execution
failed” as a status for test3_8001, but does continue to show all the
other correct stats as before. Checking the monit_errors.log shows
only the following:
488 [PDT Jun 6 20:56:22] info : ‘mongrel_test3_8001’ trying to
restart
489 [PDT Jun 6 20:56:22] info : ‘mongrel_test3_8001’ start: /usr/
bin/env
490 [PDT Jun 6 20:56:23] error : ‘mongrel_test3_8001’ failed to
stop

Other notes:
- Paths
—> I tried just having the /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems/bin/
mongrel_rails cluster::start -C /home/jay/test/testing/config/
mongrel_cluster.yml—clean—only 8001” as a path
—> I also tried adding the path to the ruby executable which is /usr/
local/bin/ruby on my machine prior to the above.

the mongrel.monitrc file:

check process test3_8001 with pidfile /home/jay/test/testing/tmp/pids/mongrel.8001.pid start program = ”/usr/bin/env PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/
gems/bin /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems/bin/mongrel_rails
cluster::start ~~C /home/jay/test/testing/config/mongrel_cluster.yml -~~
clean—only 8001” stop program = ”//usr/bin/env PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/lib/site_ruby/
gems/bin /usr/local/lib/site_ruby/gems/bin/mongrel_rails cluster::stop
-C /home/jay/test/testing/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—only 8001”

if cpu > 60% for 2 cycles then alert if cpu > 80% for 4 cycles then restart if totalmem > 110.0 MB for 4 cycles then restart
if children > 250 then restart
if loadavg(5min) greater than 10 for 8 cycles then stop
if failed host www.tildeslash.com port 80 protocol http
and request ”/monit/doc/next.php”
then restart
if failed port 443 type tcpssl protocol http
with timeout 15 seconds
then restart if 20 restarts within 20 cycles then timeout
depends on apache_bin group test_mongrels

Thanks for any thoughts – I’m at a loss…

JBB

Monit and Mongrel posted by Frank @ Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:16:25 -0000

Frank — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:16:25 -0000

I’ve been able to come up with a solution to this problem. The solution is to add the following line to /usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails

ENV[‘PATH’] = ”#{ENV[‘PATH’]}:/usr/local/bin”;

and then to have the stop/start commands in the monit config look as follows:

start program = ”/usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails cluster::start -C /home/virtual/rails/myapp/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—clean—only 5050”

stop program = ”/usr/local/bin/mongrel_rails cluster::stop -C /home/virtual/rails/myapp/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—only 5050”

This isn’t really an ideal solution as my monit monitoring will break whenever I upgrade the mongrel_cluster gem.

Monit and Mongrel posted by Frank @ Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:05:02 -0000

Frank — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:05:02 -0000

I’ve tried many different ways of specifying the start and stop commands in monit. For example, I just tried this:

start program = ”/usr/bin/env PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH} mongrel_rails cluster::start -C /home/virtual/rails/myapp/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—clean—only 5050”

stop program = ”/usr/bin/env PATH=/usr/local/bin:${PATH} mongrel_rails cluster::stop -C /home/virtual/rails/myapp/current/config/mongrel_cluster.yml—only 5050”

and still the monit log file reports:

[ Mar 14 11:43:07] info : ‘mongrel_myapp_5050’ stop: /usr/bin/env
[ Mar 14 11:43:37] error : ‘mongrel_myapp_5050’ failed to stop

I am able to run those stop start commands manually from a shell in which I set the initial path to be the same one that monit sets (/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin) so I have no idea why it doesn’t work through monit.

Is there anyway to actually debug monit and see what its actually executing and see what error message it might encounter when trying to stop or start a program?

Monit and Mongrel posted by Frank @ Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:48:26 -0000

Frank — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:48:26 -0000

I recently picked up the beta version of Deploying Rails Applications and I’m trying to use the information in the book to setup monit to monitor and restart my cluster of mongrels.

I can get monit to monitor my mongrels but I haven’t been able to get monit to be able to stop or start my mongrels. The problem seems to be related to the spartan path that monit provides when starting or stopping programs. That path is PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin

And on my particular FreeBSD 6.3 system I cannot run the mongrel_rails command successfully unless /usr/local/bin is part of my path. If I run mongrel_rails without /usr/local/bin in my path I am rewarded with this error:

/usr/local/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27: command not found: