Every wondered about the possibility of running a rails app, and a php (or anything else for that matter) site together, on one virtual host, on apache. But why? the hordes screamed … DHH keels over … the PHP community says ahh just put it in CakePHP… and to you it feels just plain *wrong*.

However, there is always that odd need, every now and then, that you have to do it. So here’s how.

It’s really simple, assuming you’re using mongrel cluster and setup a balancer in Apache for it, like so in one of the conf files…

<Proxy balancer://mybalancer.rowanhick.com>
BalancerMember http://localhost:2000
BalancerMember http://localhost:2001
BalancerMember http://localhost:2002
</Proxy>

Then on the paths that you want to mash up with your vhost, it’s as simple as this…

For specific file mapping to an action:

ProxyPass /some_path/some_file balancer://mybalancer.rowanhick.com/mycontroller/myaction
ProxyPassReverse /some_path/some_file balancer://mybalancer.rowanhick.com/mycontroller/myaction
ProxyPreserveHost On

For one path mapping to a controller:

ProxyPass /some_path/ balancer://mybalancer.rowanhick.com/mycontroller/
ProxyPassReverse /some_path/ balancer://mybalancer.rowanhick.com/mycontroller/
ProxyPreserveHost On

Restart and you’re away.

(even if it feels dirty)