Fast Rails + Heroku Configuration

addons.md

Free addons!

heroku addons:add memcachier
heroku addons:add mandrill:starter
heroku addons:add newrelic
heroku addons:add pgbackups:auto-month
heroku addons:add papertrail

Gemfile

group :production do
  gem 'unicorn'

  # Enable gzip compression on heroku, but don't compress images.
  gem 'heroku-deflater'

  # Heroku injects it if it's not in there already
  gem 'rails_12factor'
end

gem 'memcachier'
gem 'dalli'
# Fast IO for memcache
gem 'kgio'

# Serve static assets through Rack + Memcache
# https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/rack-cache-memcached-rails31
gem 'rack-cache'

Procfile

web: bundle exec unicorn -p $PORT -c ./config/unicorn.rb

production.rb

# config/environments/production.rb

# ...

  # Enable Rails's static asset server for Heroku
  config.serve_static_assets = true

  # Set static assets cache header. rack-cache will cache those.
  config.static_cache_control = "public, max-age=31536000"

  config.cache_store = :dalli_store

  client = Dalli::Client.new(ENV["MEMCACHIER_SERVERS"],
                             :value_max_bytes => 10485760,
                             :expires_in => 86400) # 1 day

  # Configure rack-cache for using memcachier
  config.action_dispatch.rack_cache = {
    :metastore    => client,
    :entitystore  => client
  }

  # Send emails via mandrill

  ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
  config.action_mailer.smtp_settings = {
    :address        => 'smtp.mandrillapp.com',
    :port           => '587',
    :authentication => :plain,
    :user_name      => ENV['MANDRILL_USERNAME'],
    :password       => ENV['MANDRILL_APIKEY'],
    :domain         => 'heroku.com',
  }

# ...

unicorn.rb

# config/unicorn.rb

worker_processes 3
timeout 30
preload_app true

before_fork do |server, worker|
  # Replace with MongoDB or whatever
  if defined?(ActiveRecord::Base)
    ActiveRecord::Base.connection.disconnect!
    Rails.logger.info('Disconnected from ActiveRecord')
  end

  # If you are using Redis but not Resque, change this
  if defined?(Resque)
    Resque.redis.quit
    Rails.logger.info('Disconnected from Redis')
  end

  sleep 1
end

after_fork do |server, worker|
  # Replace with MongoDB or whatever
  if defined?(ActiveRecord::Base)
    ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection
    Rails.logger.info('Connected to ActiveRecord')
  end

  # If you are using Redis but not Resque, change this
  if defined?(Resque)
    Resque.redis = ENV['REDIS_URI']
    Rails.logger.info('Connected to Redis')
  end
end

These settings, minus Memcache, are in Suspenders. I prefer fronting my Heroku apps with Fastly to Memcache for the fastest static asset serving that only hits the Heroku dynos once per cache via origin pull.

You can change the Sendgrid by the Mandrill. In the free plan, they have the double of emails.

@mathieugagne Thanks! I just fixed it!

@maurogeorge Done!

@croaky Fastly charges a minimum of $50 a month right?

Could use a gem 'newrelic' line in the Gemfile. I added the addon but missed the gem, and was wondering why Newrelic was "waiting on data" 😁

do u need to have workers?

The command is now heroku addons:create instead of heroku addons:add

Also, heroku addons:add pgbackups:auto-month doesn't exist. The only postgres backup system I see now is heroku addons:create autobus