Rails on real VMs, no platform tax

Deploy

From rails new to live in four steps

Rails 8 ships with a Dockerfile and Kamal config. Give Kamal an Edge VM and it does the rest.

~/acme — zsh

$ edge compute create --name rails \

--size s-4vcpu-8gb --image ubuntu-24 \

--region london --script hardened-ssh

✓ vm-8b2f5d running · 64.34.86.90

$ kamal setup

✓ Docker installed · kamal-proxy booted

✓ Accessory db (postgres:16) running

✓ Finished all in 94.2 seconds

$ kamal deploy

✓ Finished all in 38.6 seconds

kamal deploy38.6s

app.acme.coLive

Serverpuma · kamal-proxy

JobsSolid Queue

1. 01

   Create a VM

   The hardened-ssh script turns off password logins and enables fail2ban and UFW. Kamal installs Docker itself on the first run.

   shellCopy

   $ edge compute create --name rails --size s-4vcpu-8gb \
       --image ubuntu-24 --region london --script hardened-ssh

2. 02

   Put Active Storage on Edge Storage

   Then set config.active_storage.service = :edge in production.rb.

   config/storage.ymlCopy

   edge:
     service: S3
     endpoint: https://storage.edge.network
     access_key_id: <%= ENV["EDGE_ACCESS_KEY"] %>
     secret_access_key: <%= ENV["EDGE_SECRET_KEY"] %>
     region: us-east-1
     bucket: acme-blobs
     force_path_style: true

3. 03

   Point Kamal at the VM

   Postgres runs as an accessory on the same VM. Move it to its own VM later by changing one host.

   config/deploy.ymlCopy

   service: acme
   image: acme/app
   servers:
     web:
       - <vm-ip>
   proxy:
     host: app.acme.co
   registry:
     server: ghcr.io
     username: acme
     password:
       - KAMAL_REGISTRY_PASSWORD
   builder:
     arch: amd64
   env:
     secret:
       - RAILS_MASTER_KEY
       - EDGE_ACCESS_KEY
       - EDGE_SECRET_KEY
   accessories:
     db:
       image: postgres:16
       host: <vm-ip>
       port: "127.0.0.1:5432:5432"
       env:
         secret:
           - POSTGRES_PASSWORD
       directories:
         - data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

4. 04

   Deploy and front it with the CDN

   kamal setup prepares the server and boots accessories once. After that, every release is kamal deploy.

   shellCopy

   $ kamal setup
   $ kamal deploy
   
   $ edge cdn create --name acme
   $ edge cdn domains add cdn-0f4b7a \
       --domain app.acme.co \
       --origin https://<vm-ip> \
       --jit-image

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