Multiple Ruby apps on one port, RackBaseURI help - ruby

Question

I'm trying to get two Ruby apps to work from the same port. I don't know server technology at all, so forgive my ignorance. I've tried to follow this doc:
http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html
sections 4.1 - 4.3, but I keep messing something up. I've tried to simplify a little, so here is my situation. I have two simple rackup apps here:
/Users/dan/webapps/test1
/Users/dan/webapps/test2
They each have the "config.ru" file, the public/ folder, and the tmp/ folder with "restart.txt", as directed. They both work on their own.
I have the following in my httpd.conf file:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot /Users/dan/webapps
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps>
Allow from all
</Directory>
RackBaseURI /test1
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps/test1>
Options -MultiViews
</Directory>
RackBaseURI /test2
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps/test2>
Options -MultiViews
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
I start apache, and then put this in my browser: http://localhost/test1. I get:
Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /test1 on this server.
I'm not surprised it doesn't work, because I am supposed to set up a symlink but I don't know how to apply that to my setup. Here is the example from the doc:
ln -s /webapps/rackapp/public /websites/phusion/rack
Can you tell me how to set up the symlinks, and let me know if you see anything else wrong? Please give the "for dummies" answer, this stuff boggles my mind. Thanks!

Answer 1

To create the symlinks, try this:
ln-s /Users/dan/webapps/test1 /Users/dan/webapps/test1/public
ln-s /Users/dan/webapps/test2 /Users/dan/webapps/test2/public
However, as chris polzer mentioned, you should also check that your apache user can read from those directories.
If you don't know how to do that, then post the output of these commands:
ls -l /Users/dan/webapps/test1
ls -l /Users/dan/webapps/test2.
ps -aux | grep http
ps -aux | grep apache
You may also need to check the permissions of all parent directories. I.e. /Users, /Users/dan, and /Users/dan/webapps. See: http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html#_deploying_to_a_virtual_host_8217_s_root_2

Answer 2

phylae, I think you may have the paths reversed in the symbolic link. To get it working, I changed the link names for clarity:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName localhost
DocumentRoot /Users/dan/webapps
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps>
Allow from all
</Directory>
RackBaseURI /test1link
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps/test1>
Options -MultiViews
</Directory>
RackBaseURI /test2link
<Directory /Users/dan/webapps/test2>
Options -MultiViews
</Directory>
</VirtualHost>
and then, the symbolic links:
ln -s /Users/dan/webapps/test1/public /Users/dan/webapps/test1link
ln -s /Users/dan/webapps/test2/public /Users/dan/webapps/test2link
Then these urls work as expected in a browser.
http://localhost/
http://localhost/test1link
http://localhost/test2link