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Rails 3 on Ubuntu Karmic Koala (Fivebean)
This is one of my “Getting Things Right” posts, a.k.a, “How The Hell Do I Set Up My Rails Site on a VPS host.” It’s almost always more difficult to get things right than get things done. I tried Slicehost and Linode before and I always ended up rebuilding because I couldn’t get the right setup.
Rails 3 is a little more painful than 2.3.5. This is not due to the framework itself but due to deployment issues. This dissuades a lot of people from even trying. Why should you bother using something that doesn’t work on any of your servers? But which is important? “Your application” or “your server” ? Remember that you server exists for your application and not otherwise.
I thought about the idea today as i’s Easter Sunday. Happy Easter, all. It’s time to kill the stuff that “kills your time,” and wake up from a really bad dream full of passenger errors.
So little time, so much to do. Why should I bother thinking too much. As someone told me, it’s not worth pulling your hair for — go get a VPS.
32-bit or 64-bit?
I always choose 32-bit regardless of the plan I take. I took a plan with 768MB memory and still chose 32-bit because based on experience, 768MB is never enough for some applications to run.
So here’s the lengthy guide on setting up Rails 3 on Ubuntu Karmic Koala. I may add in comments and stuff I missed later but this should work for you as it worked for me.
ssh root@your-ip-address
or ssh anotherroot@your-ip-address
When using root, you may not use sudo anymore.
Edit sources list:
nano /etc/apt/sources.list
It should have:
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ karmic-updates multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu karmic-security multiverse
Update Ubuntu.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Set up locale:
sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Install build-essential:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Install Ruby 1.8.7
sudo apt-get install ruby irb ri rdoc ruby1.8-dev libzlib-ruby libyaml-ruby libreadline-ruby libncurses-ruby
libcurses-ruby libruby libruby-extras libfcgi-ruby1.8 build-essential libopenssl-ruby libdbm-ruby libdbi-ruby
libdbd-sqlite3-ruby sqlite3 libsqlite3-dev libsqlite3-ruby libxml-ruby libxml2-dev ri1.8 rdoc1.8
As of this date, there are still some issues with Rails 3 and Ruby 1.9.1. There is a segmentation fault when running “rails server”. It neither works on development or production for me. Until it does work, I will use 1.8.7.
Install rubygems version 1.3.6. Rails 3 Beta 2 requires 1.3.6.
mkdir src
cd src
sudo apt-get install wget
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/69365/rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
tar xvzf rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.6
sudo ruby setup.rb
Install the mysql gem (for those using mysql). Since it’s VPS, why not use PostgreSQL? Go ahead and google that if that’s what you need.
sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev
sudo gem install mysql --no-rdoc --no-ri
Install Phusion Passenger requirements and the passenger gem.
sudo apt-get install libc6 libpcre3 libpcre3-dev libpcrecpp0 libssl0.9.8 libssl-dev zlib1g zlib1g-dev lsb-base
sudo gem install passenger
passenger-install-nginx-module
Create the script for starting and stopping nginx server:
sudo nano /etc/init.d/nginx
Copy this to the new file.
#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: nginx
# Required-Start: $all
# Required-Stop: $all
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: starts the nginx web server
# Description: starts nginx using start-stop-daemon
### END INIT INFO
PATH=/opt/nginx/sbin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
DAEMON=/opt/nginx/sbin/nginx
NAME=nginx
DESC=nginx
test -x $DAEMON || exit 0
# Include nginx defaults if available
if [ -f /etc/default/nginx ] ; then
. /etc/default/nginx
fi
set -e
case "$1" in
start)
echo -n "Starting $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \
--exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
echo "$NAME."
;;
stop)
echo -n "Stopping $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \
--exec $DAEMON
echo "$NAME."
;;
restart|force-reload)
echo -n "Restarting $DESC: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --pidfile \
/opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON
sleep 1
start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile \
/opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid --exec $DAEMON -- $DAEMON_OPTS
echo "$NAME."
;;
reload)
echo -n "Reloading $DESC configuration: "
start-stop-daemon --stop --signal HUP --quiet --pidfile /opt/nginx/logs/$NAME.pid \
--exec $DAEMON
echo "$NAME."
;;
*)
N=/etc/init.d/$NAME
echo "Usage: $N {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0
Edit permissions of the script.
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/nginx
sudo /usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f nginx defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/nginx start
And finally install Rails 3 Beta 2
sudo gem install arel tzinfo builder memcache-client rack rack-test rack-mount erubis mail text-format thor bundler
sudo gem install rails --prerelease
Other things you should never forget:
Postfix for sending email
sudo apt-get install postfix
Git for source control management
sudo apt-get install git-core