Creating a Production Rails 3.1 Server (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS)

The following are instructions on how to create a production Rails 3.1 Server using Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

Download the Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS 64 bit Server ISO from here and install it. Install the "LAMP Server" and "OpenSSH Server" packages when prompted.

Install prerequisites

sudo apt-get install build-essential libyaml-dev zlib1g-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev libopenssl-ruby apache2-prefork-dev libapr1-dev libaprutil1-dev

Download the Ruby source code and compile it

cd ~
mkdir ruby_src
cd ruby_src
wget http://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.3-p0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf ruby-1.9.3-p0.tar.gz
cd ruby-1.9.3-p0
./configure
make
sudo make install

Verify Ruby installed correctly

ruby -v

Expected output is "ruby 1.9.3p0 (2011-10-30 revision 33570) [x86_64-linux]"

Download the RubyGems source code and compile it

cd ~
mkdir rubygems_src
cd rubygems_src
wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/75573/rubygems-1.8.12.tgz
tar -zxvf rubygems-1.8.12.tgz
cd rubygems-1.8.12
sudo ruby setup.rb

Verify RubyGems installed correctly

gem -v

Expected output is "1.8.12"

Install Rails

sudo gem install rails

Verify Rails installed correctly

rails -v

Expected output is "Rails 3.1.3"

Install Phusion Passenger

sudo gem install passenger
sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

Configure Apache by adding these lines to /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-3.0.11/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.1/gems/passenger-3.0.11
PassengerRuby /usr/local/bin/ruby

Configure your rails application by adding these lines to /etc/apache2/apache2.conf, assuming the name of your app is Mytest. Make sure to change the ServerName to the name of the server.

      <VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName www.yourhost.com
        DocumentRoot /usr/local/mytest/public
        <Directory /usr/local/mytest/public>
           AllowOverride all
           Options -MultiViews
        </Directory>
      </VirtualHost>
    

Restart Apache

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Modify the Gemfile to include execjs and therubyracer if needed. Then run "sudo bundle install"

Rails application housekeeping

sudo bundle update
RAILS_ENV=production rake db:create db:schema:load
rake assets:precompile
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart