Running Ubuntu Server 10.04 with Rails 2.3.4 and Webrick 1.3.1; our rails app runs fine when called via script/server -e production, but trying to test it as a daemon by calling it with the -d flag produces the following output:
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 2.3.4 application starting on http://0.0.0.0:3000
Nothing is produced in the logs, and other Rails applications will run detached without issue.
I don't mean to contradict your choosing Webrick as a production server and maybe there is something I'm missing about why you are choosing Webrick, but have you considered other alternatives? I'd wager you already know all of this, but Webrick is the provided ruby server, and it is also the slowest ruby server choice.
Some of the most popular production server choices are:
Passenger is likely the most popular choice for production now due to its easy configuration, speed, and features.
If there is a specific use case for Webrick that makes it better than any of the other server choices, I'd love to know.