Railo 4 and IIS

So it has been a long, strange year of intensive Ruby on Rails development and I am glad to say I got both projects live and on to maintenance plans. I've been steadily releasing updates monthly and managing the feature list. Next I will be making a fork of one of the projects to make a similar app for a different department. That will require much more server and deploy issues, which I may talk about when that comes around.

However, now that I have had time to clear those up, a new project is to get our ColdFusion code from our old and hastily build Adobe ColdFusion 9 server to a new Railo 4 box. I've spent about a week working with a test IIS 7 box provided to me and have been allowed to build and fail and make a mess of things and I think I just about have it right.

There are documentation and discussions all over the place so I thought I should record my notes here. In general our server serves 4 sites and we had used multiple instances in Adobe's CF. I had wanted to replicate that process as well as lock down the Administrative interface from being accessed from the web (local access only). I don't think Railo does Multiple Instances as we have known them, but I wanted to run multiple web apps from the one server, which is nearly the same thing, almost. Not really, but for our purposes the technical differences are not meaningful. We want multiple sites/apps and no Admin access from the internet.

Prepping IIS

Ok, so the systems team built me a virtual server and he made some C-Names so that I could test multiple sites on the one box: app-testrailo.unm.edu and mobile-testrailo.unm.edu. I used my remote console and created the Web Server (IIS) role and included basic Web Server services and the Application Development services (ASP, .Net, CGI, ISAPI Extentions and Filters).

We keep our web files on a different drive from the C: so I created my sites: app and mobile and bound them to the urls and the path was set to z:\app and z:\mobile. Then I dumped in some sample apps so I would have something decent to test. Then I tested out the web server and viewed the successful HTML pages.

Prepping Railo

I read and followed the install instructions for Railo. The installer does it's thing very quickly. Up comes the basic Railo welcome page and links to my administrator. However, this is the Default root that lives in the default C:tomcat... Railo... Root folder. My regular web applications just gave me 500 errors. To link up my apps I needed to edit the Tomcat Host Config and restart the Railo service. Near the bottom of the Host Config file I needed to add these entries near the bottom:

         <Host name="hsc-testrailo.health.unm.edu" appBase="webapps">
             <Context path="" docBase="E:\hscapp" />
        </Host>

        <Host name="mobile-testrailo.health.unm.edu" appBase="webapps">
             <Context path="" docBase="E:\hscmobile" />
        </Host>

I also commented out the "localhost" entry since I was not using C:\inetpub\wwwroot\. I'm not sure if that was useful, but it seemed like a good idea. After a restart I am getting my apps to process the ColdFusion. Yay! Even cooler is seeing my sites in the list of Web contexts in the administration page. Double Yay!

Secure the Administrator

Now, I run some tests and the server administrator is available on the open internet. Boo! So we must secure the context. There are a number of Apache fixes discussed, but the key is to address the Bon Code Tomcat Connector for IIS. A Google Groups post gave me a hint. There is a "BonCodeAJP13.settings" file in the C:\railo\ajp13 directory where I can set the

<EnableRemoteAdmin>True</EnableRemoteAdmin>

to False. However this file is just the sample one, in my case the real one lives it the C:\Windows directory. It also administrative protected, so updating it was kind of a pain: file saved, Railo restarted, and my sites still work. And the url "http://app-testrailo.unm.edu/railo-context/admin/server.cfm" produces this error:

Access from remote not allowed (2).

Success!

Making Report Views in Ruby on Rails Pt. 2

Following up, once I have access to my views, I simply need to group and loop over my results and put them in a nice table. So, in my app/views/admin/reports/gme_by_opening_html.erb lets get started:

<h1>GME Department Coverage by Site Openings</h1>
<p><%= @results_count %> records returned.</p>

<% @results.group_by(&:dept_code).each do |dept_code,providers| %>
<table class="table table-striped table-bordered">
<thead>
  <tr>
    <th>Name</th>
    <th>Date</th>
    <th>Shift Hours</th>
    <th>Site</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="4"><h4><%= dept_code %></h4></td>
  </tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
  <% providers.group_by(&:full_name).each do |full_name, info| %>
    <tr>
      <td colspan="4"><b><%= full_name %></b></td>
    </tr>
    <% info.each do |r| %>
    <tr>
      <td>&nbsp;</td>
      <td><%= r.date_open.try(:strftime,'%-m/%-d/%Y') %></td>
      <td><%= r.hours %></td>
      <td><%= r.name %></td>
    </tr>
    <% end %>
  <% end %>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<% end %>

So, what we have here (building on the previous post) is a list of doctors, from different departments who work at sites on different days for specific shifts. The grouping in this report is by department, then by doctor's name and a list of the sites by date. The key here is to group_by(&:_field_).each and then break out a sub grouping. Not too bad. But, wouldn't it be nice to have a filter to cut the data by date or other result? Like if I wanted a quarterly report?

In app/controllers/admin/reports_controller.rb I'm going to have a default time frame and accept filters. Also I'm going to create a nice label based on the dates (I think I'm supposed to put the label construction in the view, but I like it here where I can see all the filters I'm making- like if I wanted to filter on department instead). This code comes from Stack Overflow.

  def gme_by_opening
    if params[:start_date] && params[:end_date]
      filter_start = params[:start_date]
      filter_end = params[:end_date]
      @results = ReportGmeByOpening.where(
        "date_open <= ? AND date_open >= ?", Date.parse(filter_end), Date.parse(filter_start)
      ).order(
          "dept_code", "full_name", "date_open"
      )#.group_by(&:dept_code,:full_name)
      @results_label = "Records from " + filter_start + " to " + filter_end
    else
      @results = ReportGmeByOpening.where(
        "date_open <= ? AND date_open >= ?", Date.today, 1.month.ago
      ).order(
          "dept_code", "full_name", "date_open"
      )
      @results_label = "Records from " + 1.month.ago.try(:strftime,'%-m/%-d/%Y') + " to " + Date.today.try(:strftime,'%-m/%-d/%Y')
    end
    @results_count = @results.count

    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # gme_by_opening.html.erb
    end
  end

Then in my gme_by_opening.html.erb I change the header to:

<h1>GME Department Coverage by Site Openings</h1>
<div class="row">
<p class="span6"><%= @results_label %>, with <%= @results_count %> records returned.</p>
<div class="span6"><%= form_tag(admin_reports_gme_by_opening_path, {:class => 'form-inline'}) do %>
  <%= text_field_tag :start_date, nil, :class => 'input-small' %> to
  <%= text_field_tag :end_date, nil, :class => 'input-small' %>
  <%= submit_tag "Update Date Range Filter", :class => "btn" %>
<% end %></div>
</div>

Making Report Views in Ruby on Rails

I am in the middle of launching another Ruby on Rails web application that was left to me to finish. I've spent several months adding features, fixing the data models, cleaning up styles and UI. Pretty much maintenance tasks and support but without the main architect or developer. The remaining major issues left for me was to import 8 years of data and develop some reporting functions. I will probably write about the data export/import experience later. However, creating reports was a fairly complicated effort due to not a lot of explicit help or examples.

When I talk about reporting, I am referring to data models that bring together lots of tables worth of data and then allow the viewer to select, sort and filter on their own. In our shrinking and harried unit it is becoming clear that web apps are not the best place to manage data sets of any significance. Security issues, application responsiveness and development speed are all significant obstacles for us. Only ease of deployment and flexibility of access work in a web app's favor. And for in-house, departmental apps that may not be enough of an advantage.

Regardless, this app needs reports!

So, first I create the Views I need in SQL Server. No problem, I do that all the time, but how do I call them in Rails? Stack Overflow has a start for me. And I create a model to call the View I built.

rails generate model report_gme_by_opening

I throw away the migration that is generated and paste in the example.

class ReportGmeByOpening < ActiveRecord::Base
  # attr_accessible :title, :body
  set_table_name "report_gme_by_opening"
  #set_primary_key "if_not_id"
end

I don't need the primary key (there is none) and I don't think I need any accessible attrs since it is read only.

Wait, I need a reports controller in my admin part of the app if this is going to work.

rails generate controller admin/reports gme_by_opening

This gives me a blank controller and a definition of one report controller.

class Admin::ReportsController < Admin::AdminController
  respond_to :html
 
  def gme_by_opening
    @results = ReportGmeByOpening
    @results_count = @results.count
    respond_to do |format|
      format.html # gme_by_opening.html.erb
    end
  end
end

And then I make a gme_by_opening.html.erb file with some basic info.

<h1>GME Department Coverage by Site Openings</h1>
<p><%= @results_count %> records returned.</p>

And then I need to make a route available.

namespace :admin do
  match '/reports/gme_by_opening', :to => 'reports#gme_by_opening'
end

Finally I can make a link like this.

<%= link_to "GME by Openings", admin_reports_gme_by_opening_path%>

All the pieces work and I can get to my page and have some basic output. But next I need some filtering and grouping to make this useful to my customers.

Server Migration

So, networking found a massive compromise on our ColdFusion server and we've been spending a couple of weeks building a new one and getting it set up. Unfortunately, through the loss of employees to better opportunities, nearly all our expertise in building and deploying is gone. So, I've had to drop nearly everything and relearn how to set up a CF server. Not my favorite thing to do.

Rails vs MS SQL Server

So, I am finishing off a couple of Ruby on Rails apps that fell to me (from where I had just a supporting role) to finish and deploy. Several bugs that appeared in the production app where it had worked fine in development gave me fits.

Most had to do with the way that the development SQlite seemed to be more permissive than the production's MS SQL Server. Sometimes, updating rails to 3.2.x would fix it. But that would also introduce new problems.

The worst was when I finally got my bug list squashed only to have new bug for settled issues appear. Suddenly my .empty? statements stopped working. So I switched to .blank? on advice from Ruby Quicktips. I suppose I need to do some deeper reading on the language rather than just Googling when I need a function. Part of the trouble is that I will have to pay attention to Ruby versions and what might or might not work with a database.

I think it is also time to stop doing tutorials and actually write an app up from scratch.

Client and Server Side Form Validation Pt. 3

So, with a nice looking form, and some decent JavaScript processing my form works very nicely. However, I need to make sure that the server receives good data even if the JavaScript was turned off or not in play. All that form niceness is to help the user, now it is time to help the server.

Currently, my thinking on this isn't very solid. I'm asking the server to do a lot of work to double check the form and then determining if it should pass on the information to be processed or if the form needs to be displayed again.

This is not too bad if the form is small and has a predetermined set of fields. However, many of these forms are dynamically generated, so the processing has to be dynamically processed as well. This is where I try to take advantage of frameworks and partials to keep my display code in modular chunks- breaking out the form from the rest of the page.

Basically, I try to cfparam all the form fields and then validate the results and report them with the form. So if JavaScript does its job on the original form, great. If not, it still is taken care of before it hits the server. Regardless of the amount of work the server or I have to do, it is probably for the best.

Client and Server Side Form Validation Pt. 2

So continuing from oh, so long ago. I have moved from the previous basic form and posting and blended in Bootstrap, jQuery.Validation and a lot of Googling/research.

Styling up a nice, easy to read and flow form with Bootstrap's form code is straight forward and pleasant. Even if radio button groups can be tricky.

Next, I needed to bring in some jQuery validation. Pretty much the go to is the jQuery Validation plug-in from bassistance.de. It seems to have the most work and there were many tutorials and references in the Bootstrap issues discussion about getting it to work.

My starting point to getting from Ben Nadel's basic form upgraded is this little code sample called jQuery Validate Demo from aLittleCode.com. This will punch up your forms nicely. But the forms I work with extensively use radio groups (evaluation ratings of 1-5, sometimes with N/A and some need to be required).

From here it takes a little fixing and JavaScript to include radio buttons to put the error message in a decent place. I got my notes from these two posts: Mihir Chitnis and this discussion (starting with the last half of kwilliams's post) on the Bootstrap issues.

I'd like to see Bootstrap fold in jQuery Validation to their JavaScript library or for a solid plug in to be developed. But with some tweaking I think I got a code base to work for my code set up.

Lets see if I can find some place to put code...


Form HTML
Form JavaScript