LinkedInI’ve been wanting to implement an asset host for my Rails app, looking over the API I saw that Rails’ asset_host only supported a single domain. I’m running multiple domains off one Rails app, so this would have been a problem. After a little research, I came up with a solution that would work for me.
I run this as a before_filter in my Application Controller.
# for my use, @site.domain returns the user's current
# domain. you should change this to whatever method
# you use to get the domain
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_filter :find_asset_host
private
def find_asset_host
ActionController::Base.asset_host = Proc.new { |source|
asset_hosts = %w{icarus zeus aphrodite etc etc}
# disable asset host for development
if is_development?
""
else
"http://#{asset_hosts[rand(4)]}.#{@site.domain}"
end
}
end
end
# domain. you should change this to whatever method
# you use to get the domain
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
before_filter :find_asset_host
private
def find_asset_host
ActionController::Base.asset_host = Proc.new { |source|
asset_hosts = %w{icarus zeus aphrodite etc etc}
# disable asset host for development
if is_development?
""
else
"http://#{asset_hosts[rand(4)]}.#{@site.domain}"
end
}
end
end
Tags: asset host, asset hosts, asset_host
Asset hosts support multiple domains: config.action_controller.asset_host = “assets%d.domain.com”
off topic, but is that your S4??? if so, nice.
It's really cool. Does it mean that I can hold more than 4 assets hosting server?
You set your hosts in the hash.
I really wouldn't recommend implementing this. From what I know, the randomized solution above will force assets to be downloaded 3+ times (once for each server) as a user cruises through your website. It will essentially render browser caching useless.
Example:
We're linking to logo.png in the header.
Page 1: http://icarus.mycoolsite.com/images/logo.png
Page 2: http://zeus.mycoolsite.com/images/logo.png
Page 3: http://aphrodite.mycoolsite.com/images/logo.png
Your browser will interpret this as 3 different files and download it once at Page 1 and again on Page 2 and again on Page 3. Imagine doing that with every asset on a page. This is way worse than having a single asset host.
The real solution would be to conceive of a way to tie specific assets to specific hosts by filename or id or something.
Then spend a little extra time to make it work…the following is my production code.
def find_asset_host
if APP_CONFIG['use_asset_servers'] == true
ActionController::Base.asset_host = Proc.new { |source|
asset_hosts = %w{icarus hades dionysus apollo zeus aphrodite ares poseidon}
# disable asset host
if is_development?
“”
else
if source.starts_with?('/content')
“http://#{asset_hosts[rand(8)]}.#{@site.domain}”
else
“http://assets.#{@site.domain}”
end
end
}
end
end
Then spend a little extra time to make it work…the following is my production code.
def find_asset_host
if APP_CONFIG['use_asset_servers'] == true
ActionController::Base.asset_host = Proc.new { |source|
asset_hosts = %w{icarus hades dionysus apollo zeus aphrodite ares poseidon}
# disable asset host
if is_development?
“”
else
if source.starts_with?('/content')
“http://#{asset_hosts[rand(8)]}.#{@site.domain}”
else
“http://assets.#{@site.domain}”
end
end
}
end
end