How To Install Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu 12.04 from Source

Status: Deprecated

This article covers a version of Ubuntu that is no longer supported. If you are currently operate a server running Ubuntu 12.04, we highly recommend upgrading or migrating to a supported version of Ubuntu:

• Upgrade to Ubuntu 14.04.
• Upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 to Ubuntu 16.04
• Migrate the server data to a supported version

Reason: Ubuntu 12.04 reached end of life (EOL) on April 28, 2017 and no longer receives security patches or updates. This guide is no longer maintained.

See Instead:
This guide might still be useful as a reference, but may not work on other Ubuntu releases. If available, we strongly recommend using a guide written for the version of Ubuntu you are using. You can use the search functionality at the top of the page to find a more recent version.

About Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is an application stack that provides developers with a framework to quickly create a variety of web applications.

Rails can be installed on a virtual private server with a variety of packages, but it can also be download manually, from source. This tutorial will go over the manual installation.

Setup

The steps in this tutorial require the user to have root privileges. You can see how to set that up in theInitial Server Setup with Ubuntu in steps 3 and 4.

Step One—Download Ruby

Before you begin, make sure that your repository is up to date:

sudo apt-get update

Once the update finishes, we can start the ruby download:

Create a directory for the ruby download:

mkdir ~/downloads

Then switch into that directory:

cd ~/downloads

And begin downloading ruby:

sudo wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.3-p0.tar.gz

Keep in mind that you can always access the latest version of ruby from the Ruby on Rails website: http://rubyonrails.org/download

Once you have downloaded ruby, download the dependancies to your virtual server. These will help later to make the installation as smooth as possible.

sudo apt-get install build-essential openssl libreadline6 libreadline6-dev curl git-core zlib1g zlib1g-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt-dev autoconf libc6-dev ncurses-dev automake libtool bison nodejs subversion

After the dependancies are installed on your VPS, unzip the ruby file:

tar xvfz ruby-1.9.3-p0.tar.gz

Once the process has completed, enter into the downloaded directory.

cd ruby-1.9.3-p0

Step Two—Install Ruby

Inside the Ruby directory we have to run the three standard commands to install the software.

First:

./configure

"Configure" generates the make file and also checks that the server has all of the required dependancies. After that, still in the directory, you need to run the "make" command:

make

This may take a bit longer. Once it finishes, use make install:

sudo make install

Step Three—Install Gems

Once you have thoroughly unpacked the ruby code, the next step is to address the ruby gems. Since you installed the ruby package from the source, the gems should already be downloaded. However, you may need to update them:

sudo gem update --system

Step Four—Install Rails

After the gems are all up to date, you can complete the manual installation by setting up rails:

sudo gem install rails

With that, you have Ruby on Rails installed on your server.

Step Five—See Rails Online

After you have installed Ruby on Rails, you will be all set to start putting your ruby apps online.

To access the Ruby server, you simply need to make a new Ruby on Rails project:

rails new project_name

Enter into that directory:

 cd project_name

And then turn on the rails server:

rails server

Step Six—RESULTS: Access Your Ruby Server

Once Ruby on Rails is installed, you can access your virtual private server by accessing your domain or IP address (ie. 12.34.56.789:3000).

The page should look like this.

Excellent—you have now installed Ruby on Rails from source.

See More

Once you have installed Ruby on Rails, you can proceed to Create a SSL Certificate for your site or Install an FTP server