Active public_file_server in local to serve public assets

[skyler4123]

I am testing a rails app with env = production on local. I can not use Thruster to serve assets when I am not turning config.public_file_server.enabled = true at production.rb. Why can not Thruster serve directly assets from public? Does it need rails to do that?

[tmaier]

I am not using thruster, yet.

@skyler4123 can you tell me, if enabling X-Sendfile helps here already in some way when one configures config.action_dispatch.x_sendfile_header = 'X-Sendfile' in Ruby on Rails?

The benefit I see when it goes through rails (before it is being cached): It allows us to continue to set the headers in the rails configuration. E.g., config.public_file_server.headers = { 'Cache-Control' => 'public, max-age=31536000' }.

[aishek]

Why can not Thruster serve directly assets from public?

The reason is Thruster is proxy not a web server. Proxy means it only adds some useful features to interaction with a web server. In case of Thruster it is compression, cache, ssl. Because of following this narrow proxy concept the tool remains lightweight, focused and easy to use. This is why it cannot serve file itself.

Does it need rails to do that?

No, actually you can put any web server behind a proxy, this is one of the key features of the proxy concept. Proxy does not know anything about web server, instead it assume that the web server use common protocol.