Installing Rails without root
December 9, 2007Some people are concerned with keeping their /usr hierarchy clean. Some people have no root access to the system that they are on. Some people don’t like using /usr/local. These people still want to install and run Ruby and Rails, but it will be best for them if it is done in a way that will keep gem working as it should.
I like to tell these people, “Oh it should be easy,” but I had to really make sure. There is one little trick, which is to make sure you really are using the right ruby when you install rubygems and then the right gem when you install Rails (and forever after).
As much for my own benefit as for anyone else’s, I put together a script so that I don’t forget. This should work on any UNIX that has the build dependencies for Ruby. That includes Linux of flavors Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, and Slackware for all you Google fans out there. (The guy whose problems prompted me to put this together was using Ubuntu.) I like Debian but have found that Rails changes way too fast for Debian packages to be a viable way to install it. Gem is much better and standard in the Rails community, so you should do a local install of Ruby from source and then install rubygems using that version.
Without further ado, here’s the script that will save you time. You will need to edit it some unless you want /opt/rails. Personally I use /usr/local. It will also leave a build subdirectory in whatever location you use. It is your option to remove it after the fact. I would do so myself.
#!/bin/bash INSTALL_ROOT=/opt/rails cd $INSTALL_ROOT mkdir build cd $INSTALL_ROOT/build wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.6-p111.tar.gz tar zxvf ruby-1.8.6-p111.tar.gz cd ruby-1.8.6-p111 ./configure --prefix=$INSTALL_ROOT make make install cd $INSTALL_ROOT/build wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/28174/rubygems-0.9.5.tgz tar zxvf rubygems-0.9.5.tgz # This is crucial. rubygems setup really cares where ruby ran from, and if # you have a system-wide ruby then it might get confused. export PATH=$INSTALL_ROOT/bin:$PATH # Of course you will also want to makde sure you include this wherever you # normally set your PATH. cd $INSTALL_ROOT/build/rubygems-0.9.5 ruby setup.rb cd $INSTALL_ROOT which ruby which gem gem install rake gem install rails --source=http://gems.rubyonrails.org gem environment which rails rails --version
Thanks for the script, very handy. It might be nice to have a
mkdir $INSTALL_ROOTat the beginning.
why on earth would anyone install this from root?
I doubt anyone would install under /, if that’s what you mean. For myself I typically install under /usr/local as the root user (which is the same as leaving out –prefix).
I wrote this up when I was trying to help someone who wanted to install it as the root user but under /opt/rails, which is kind of a strange place to put Ruby, but whatever. That particular person was having continued difficulties despite more terse advice about how to use –prefix.
There are other variations, like system-installed Ruby but with your gems somewhere else, but I wanted to keep it simple here.
That was pretty awesome..!! Earlier I had spent 3 days in installing and even that gave segmentation errors. This script just ran for about 5 minutes and installed Ruby!! Hats off.