HOWTO: Ubuntu Intrepid RubyOnRails Passenger

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Install required packages 1.2 Install RubyGems from source 1.3 Install our Gems 1.4 Install Passenger 1.5 Reconfigure Apache2

Introduction

Recently it has become much easier to setup a RubyOnRails stack utilizing a Ruby gem called Passenger. Passenger will compile an apache2 module which will allow you to configure a RubyOnRails virtualhost the same way as you would any other site.

Unfortunately, on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid, the RubyGems package is broken. It will give you random code errors and leave you pulling out your hair. Not to worry, this step by step process will get you up and running with a full Rails stack using Passenger in no time.

The following steps assume you are running the commands as root.

Install required packages

# apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
# apt-get install build-essential subversion apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-prefork-dev 
# apt-get install ruby ruby1.8-dev ri irb libopenssl-ruby mysql-server

Install RubyGems from source

# cd /usr/src
# wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/45905/rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
# tar zxvf rubygems-1.3.1.tgz
# cd rubygems-1.3.1
# ruby setup.rb
# ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem

Install our Gems

# gem install rails rake passenger
# rails -v

Install Passenger

Here we tell passenger to compile and install the apache2 module

# passenger-install-apache2-module

Reconfigure Apache2

Paste the following at the end of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.3
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

Finally, we restart apache2.

# /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Now you should be able to create a standard virtualhost pointing to the public directory of your app and Apache2 will detect that it is Rails.