Integrating Ruby On Rails with Apache2 in Ubuntu 9.10

This is a quick and dirty walkthrough on how to integrate Rails with Apache2 in Ubuntu via Phusion Passenger. This guide provides setup instructions for a solution that includes:

• Apache2
• MySQL 5
• Phusion Passenger
• Ruby 1.8.7
• RubyGems + gems

Install All Required Packages from Apt

sudo apt-get install apache2 ruby irb ruby1.8-dev rdoc build-essential libopenssl-ruby apache2-prefork-dev libapr1-dev libaprutil1-dev mysql-server libmysql-ruby libmysqlclient-dev

Install RubyGems

wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
tar xvzf rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
sudo ruby setup.rb
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem

Install Required Gems

sudo gem install rails passenger mysql

Compile Passenger Apache2 Module

sudo /usr/bin/passenger-install-apache2-module

Configure Apache2

sudo vim /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/phusion.load

Add the following:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.11/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.11
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8
RailsEnv development

Setup Test Virtual Host

sudo rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/railstest

Add the following:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/testapp/public
</VirtualHost>

Restart Apache2

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Setup Default MySQL Database

mysqladmin create testapp_development -u root -p

Setup Test Rails Application

cd /var/www
sudo rm index.html
rails testapp -d mysql
cd testapp
sudo vim config/database.yml

Put in your root MySQL username and password.

Test!

1. Open browser: http://localhost
2. Click link: About your application’s environment

If you see something like the following then you were successful!

2 Responses to “Integrating Ruby On Rails with Apache2 in Ubuntu 9.10”

1. Michael says:

   June 13, 2010 at 2:23 pm

   Hey i have Ubuntu 10 Server version, and i tried to configure it following this guide and i cant get the About your applications’s evnirenment to deploy, only if i use script/server i can deploy it.
2. Josh Dressel says:

   September 18, 2010 at 3:11 pm

   Thanks for the tutorial. I have a few comments.

   A very important missing element was creating a symbolic link to gems. Without this, typing gem into the control panel has no results.
   sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/local/bin/gem

   As soon as I installed passenger, the version was 2.2.15 but the contents of phusion.load points to 2.2.11. When passenger upgrades in the future, this file will need to be rewritten to reflect the correct version of passenger.

   The last thing is in the creation of the mysql db for testapp_develepment. The command line issue of mysql create testapp_development -u root -p, at least on my Ubuntu 10.04 system, does not prompt for the password. This leaves me needing to enter my password on the command line itself becoming part of the history where anyone can see it. It’s more secure to login to MySQL with mysql -u root -p which prompts for the password. Then from there, create the database.