Error while connecting to a remote solr instance from Sunspot

Question

I am using Sunspot rails(1.1.0). Everything works when I run my Rails application and the Solr server on the same machine. When I run Solr server on a different machine, I get the following error:

Errno::ECONNREFUSED: Connection refused - Connection refused
from /opt/tibco/jruby-1.4.0RC1/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `initialize'
from /opt/tibco/jruby-1.4.0RC1/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `new'
from /opt/tibco/jruby-1.4.0RC1/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:560:in `open'

After debugging through Sunspot code, I realized that the Solr::Client is connecting to localhost rather than the remote host configured in sunspot.yml. My sunspot.yml file is as follows:

production:
  solr:
    hostname: kingkong
    port: 8983
    log_level: WARNING

The build_session method(sunspot_rails-1.1.0/lib/rails.rb:line 24) tries to establish a slave session. The slave_config method ignores the configuration provided in sunspot.yml file. Here is the slave_config method:

def slave_config(sunspot_rails_configuration)
  config = Sunspot::Configuration.build
  config.solr.url = URI::HTTP.build(
    :host => configuration.hostname,
    :port => configuration.port,
    :path => configuration.path
  ).to_s
  config
end

Is this the intended behavior? Also, has anybody successfully connected to Solr running remotely?

Note:

I was able to work around this issue by monkey patching the Sunspot::Rails.slave_config method. I added file called sunspot.rb in configurations/initializers directory.

module Sunspot::Rails
  def slave_config(sunspot_rails_configuration)
    config = Sunspot::Configuration.build
    config.solr.url = URI::HTTP.build(
      :host => sunspot_rails_configuration.hostname,
      :port => sunspot_rails_configuration.port,
      :path => sunspot_rails_configuration.path
    ).to_s
    config
  end
end
Sunspot.session = Sunspot::Rails.build_session

I am not sure if this is the correct approach. Please let me know if I am missing something basic.