This is the version of my Create talk I gave at Railsconf 2009. Sometimes the best solution is a standalone application that you can give to a client or customer to just drop on a machine and run. Maybe it is a web service, or a desktop data entry application, or mass deployed background agent, or you have no control of the deployment environment. In any case, there are situations where deploying a full ruby stack may not be an option. This talk will cover the Crate project and how it may be used to package your application, be it commandline, server, or web application. The end result is a statically built, standalone executable of the ruby interpreter and all dependent binary extensions. The application code, ruby stdlib, dependent gems, and other assets are packed into one or more SQLite databases.

1. CRATE
Packaging Standalone Ruby Applications
Jeremy Hinegardner
jeremy@copiousfreetime.org
@copiousfreetime

2. COPIOUS FREE TIME
Fedora Ruby
Packaging Gems
•beanstalkd •amalgalite
•haproxy •crate
•libtomcrypt •keybox
•libtommath •launchy
•nginx •heel
•ragel •hitimes
•tinyproxy •htauth
•rabal
•stickler

3. Crate
&
Amalgalite

4. SURVEY

5. PRE HISTORY
RubyConf 2007 (Charlotte, NC)

6. PRE HISTORY
RubyConf 2007 (Charlotte, NC)
• Sploitin’ with Ruby
• Aaron Bedra

7. PRE HISTORY
RubyConf 2007 (Charlotte, NC)
• Sploitin’ with Ruby
• Aaron Bedra
• Deploying Ruby Runtimes
• Bruce Williams & Rich Kilmer

8. STORYTIME

9. PERL 4, 1993

10. NO CONTROL

11. NO CONTROL
• interpreters? - perl probably, python maybe, ruby most likely
not

12. NO CONTROL
• interpreters? - perl probably, python maybe, ruby most likely
not
• what libraries? - openssl? zlib?

13. NO CONTROL
• interpreters? - perl probably, python maybe, ruby most likely
not
• what libraries? - openssl? zlib?
• compiler? - quite possibly not

14. What do you do, when only thing
you know about your
deployment location, is the
Operating System?

15. AND YOU LOVE RUBY.

16. YOU MAKE CRATE.

17. SO WHAT IS CRATE?

19. embedded Ruby

20. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions

21. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions
+ main wrapper

22. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library

23. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
+ application code

24. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
+ application code
Crate based application

25. RUBYSCRIPT2EXE ?

26. http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/rubyscript2exe
Ruby Application
rubylib
exe
Extension
dlls
gems
sitelib
application.exe
eee.exe eee.gz trailer

28. MY NEEDS

29. MY NEEDS
• Minimally Invasive
• do not unpack to a temporary location
• small as can be

30. MY NEEDS
• Minimally Invasive
• do not unpack to a temporary location
• small as can be
• Wide deployment capabilities
• more than linux, mac, windows, cygwin

31. embedded Ruby
+ ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
+ application code
Crate based application

32. embedded Ruby
C + ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
+ application code
Crate based application

33. embedded Ruby
C + ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
Ruby + application code
Crate based application

34. Statically Compile
embedded Ruby
C + ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
Ruby + application code
Crate based application

35. Statically Compile
embedded Ruby
C + ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
Ruby + application code
Crate based application
Amalgalite

36. Statically Compile
embedded Ruby
C + ruby extensions
+ main wrapper
+ standard library
Ruby + application code
Crate based application
Pack into Amalgalite

37. 1 CREATE TABLE rubylibs (
2 id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
3 filename TEXT UNIQUE,
4 compressed BOOLEAN,
5 contents BLOB
6 );

38. Inexact Size Measurements
Executable + C
Ruby libs
extensions
Ruby 1.8.6 2.4 M 8.4 M
Crate/ruby 1.8.6 2.9 M 1.9 M

39. 1 module Kernel
2 # alias the original require away to use later
3 alias :amalgalite_original_require :require
4
5 #
6 # hook into the system 'require' to allow for required text or blobs from an
7 # amalgalite database.
8 #
9 def require( filename )
10 loaded = amalgalite_original_require( filename )
11 rescue LoadError => load_error
12 if load_error.message =~ /#{Regexp.escape filename}z/ then
13 loaded = Amalgalite::Requires.require( filename )
14 else
15 raise load_error
16 end
17 end
18
19 private :require
20 private :amalgalite_original_require
21 end

40. Amalgalite ruby driver is
bootstrapped in its C extension

41. DEMO

42. BOOTSTRAPPING

43. ISSUE #1 - AUTOLOAD

44. ISSUE #1 - AUTOLOAD
• Problem
• bypasses the require chain setup by amalgalite
• used by rack, active_support, active_record

45. ISSUE #1 - AUTOLOAD
• Problem
• bypasses the require chain setup by amalgalite
• used by rack, active_support, active_record
• Solution
• Port tree style patches?
• custom gem builds?

46. ISSUE #2 - VIEWS IN WEB
FRAMEWORKS

47. ISSUE #2 - VIEWS IN WEB
FRAMEWORKS
• Problem
• layout and templates loaded from disk

48. ISSUE #2 - VIEWS IN WEB
FRAMEWORKS
• Problem
• layout and templates loaded from disk
• Solution
• wait for Rails 3
• sinatra, others, make patches for upstream, if needed.

49. ISSUE #3 - CLASS RELOADING
• Problem
• Development mode reloads classes
• Solution ( for now )
• production mode when running as crate based apps

50. ISSUE #4 - NOT WINDOWS
FRIENDLY ( YET )

51. QUESTIONS?