Rails - Aug 2005 - Needed - a step by step WAMP installation of Rails

I am finding the installation process for Rails a bit confusing. First 
of all I want to use:

Windows 2000
Apache 1.3+
MySQL

The above is accomplished with WAMP5 from wampserver.com

The problem is that there is no complete step-by-step for installation 
in this enviroment. The wiki instructions hop around from One-click to 
Apache.conf and other items. Installing CGI support for languages on 
Apache under windows is not that hard as long as you get the right 
components and install them in the right order. The wiki does not give 
you any of this and finding and gathering information from other sources 
is just as difficult (the fastCGI site is terrible). Especially the part 
where the installation of Rails is left over to Ruby Gems and installing 
Ruby Gems is left to one-click installer.

Part of the reason PHP is so popular is that setting up a dev machine is 
simple. Even a manual installation takes only a few minutes following 
the steps provided in the docs. Can the installation of Rails be made as 
  good or better?

Tesla

Tesla wrote:
> I am finding the installation process for Rails a bit confusing. First 
> of all I want to use:
> 
> Windows 2000
> Apache 1.3+
> MySQL
> 
> The above is accomplished with WAMP5 from wampserver.com
> 
> The problem is that there is no complete step-by-step for installation 
> in this enviroment. The wiki instructions hop around from One-click to 
> Apache.conf and other items. Installing CGI support for languages on 
> Apache under windows is not that hard as long as you get the right 
> components and install them in the right order. The wiki does not give 
> you any of this and finding and gathering information from other sources 
> is just as difficult (the fastCGI site is terrible). Especially the part 
> where the installation of Rails is left over to Ruby Gems and installing 
> Ruby Gems is left to one-click installer.
> 
> Part of the reason PHP is so popular is that setting up a dev machine is 
> simple. Even a manual installation takes only a few minutes following 
> the steps provided in the docs. Can the installation of Rails be made as 
>  good or better?
> 
> Tesla
Okay,

Let''s take the windows installation text and try and fill in the gaps

  Howto Install On Windows

I’ve finally made it work for me on a laptop, so I thought I’d share. 
These instructions are probably pretty generic across different Window 
PC’s. If this works for any other Windows versions, Processor types, 
etc., please list them here:

     * Windows XP SP2 - Intel Celeron 2.80 GHz
     * Windows XP SP1 - Pentium 4 3 GHz

Things you’ll need

Here: A webserver is needed the prefered webserver is Apache. But is 
Apache 2 a requirement or can Apache 1.3 be used. Forget the fact that 
Apache2 is more stable in windows. Since this is a development server 
the end result should be a server that is as close to the web hosting 
server as possible. This means using Apache 1.3+ since most web hosting 
is on Apache 1.3.

Apache2Triad
Wamp5
UniformServer
Apache 2+
Apache 1.3+

Ruby one-click installer

Manual installation
Here it should be stated that the one-click installer gives everything 
that is needed. But something that is missing is the fact that Apache 
runs CGI through a mod and can be set up and configured manually. Mods 
like mod_ruby,modpython require placement and configuration in the 
http.conf.

Initial intallation

Do your normal install of the basics:
This section does not have a link or an explaination of a "basic 
installation".

    1. Install Apache2Triad
    2. Install Ruby one-click installer



Setup/Configuration

Here is where the fun begins:

Here: suddenly things go back to a manual istallation format. This is 
necessary because of the nature of the Apache webserver. It needs to 
have http.conf done manually. But it is confusing in that the steps are 
mixed into the same paragraph without headers.

open CMD (Start > Run > type in: cmd) then find your installation of ruby


C:\webserver\ruby\bin> gem update
C:\webserver\ruby\bin> gem install rails --include-dependencies

These commands may take a long time, just be patient.


C:\webserver\ruby\bin> rails C:/apache2triad/htdocs/appname

And the last step is this:
Find Apache conf file: C:/apache2triad/conf/httpd.conf
all the way at the end of file (so it is easy to find later on)
place this follow code:


#################################
#     RUBY SETUP
#################################

Listen 8889
<VirtualHost *:8889>
      ServerName appname
      DocumentRoot "C:/apache2triad/htdocs/appname/public"
      ErrorLog "C:/apache2triad/logs/apache.log"
      <Directory "C:/apache2triad/htdocs/appname/public">
           Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks
           AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
           AllowOverride all
           Order allow,deny
           Allow from all
      </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

#################################
#     RUBY SETUP
#################################

Where all the fun points to: http://localhost:8889

The use of [variable]is standard in documentation and should be used 
here also. Not everyone will understand that the port number is variable 
according to the installers preferences.

Have fun and good luck!!


Tesla

Thanks for documenting this. I may need this if I cannot resolve my Windows 
2003 IIS delay issue. I have two quick questions:

1. Do you experience a longe delay ( > 20 seconds ) when accessing your 
rails website?

2. How would you configure Apache for fastcgi?
-L

<snip>

-- 
Best Regards,
-Larry
"Work, work, work...there is no satisfactory alternative."
--- E.Taft Benson


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Larry Kelly wrote:
> Thanks for documenting this.  I may need this if I cannot resolve my 
> Windows 2003 IIS delay issue.  I have two quick questions:
> 
> 1.  Do you experience a longe delay ( > 20 seconds ) when accessing  
> your rails website?
> 
> 2.  How would you configure Apache for fastcgi?
> -L
> 
> <snip>
> 
> -- 
> Best Regards,
> -Larry
> "Work, work, work...there is no satisfactory alternative."
>             --- E.Taft Benson
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Larry,

I am trying to consolidate the two installation tutorials I have found 
on the wiki. One is with FastCGI but jumps over mod_ruby. The other does 
not mention either. I will post more on this as I test and update the 
instructions.

The biggest road block to it all is the lack of requirements for usage 
of Rails. This information should actually come from a core developer. 
Perhaps it is in the new book.

Tesla

Tesla wrote:
> The biggest road block to it all is the lack of requirements for usage 
> of Rails. This information should actually come from a core developer. 
> Perhaps it is in the new book.
No core developer uses Rails on Windows. It is simply not a recommended 
production platform. Also try asking in the IRC channel. Maybe you are 
lucky ...

Sascha

Sascha Ebach wrote:
> Tesla wrote:
> 
>> The biggest road block to it all is the lack of requirements for usage 
>> of Rails. This information should actually come from a core developer. 
>> Perhaps it is in the new book.
> 
> 
> No core developer uses Rails on Windows. It is simply not a recommended 
> production platform. Also try asking in the IRC channel. Maybe you are 
> lucky ...
> 
> Sascha
The channel has too much noise. I will go to the ruby list.

Tesla

Tesla wrote:
> The channel has too much noise. I will go to the ruby list.
Don''t write it off just yet - I''ve had some immensely helpful
answers from
people in there!  You''ve just got to ask the right questions and be
patient.

If you aren''t familiar with it already, the following is a highly
recommended
read in the art of asking the right questions online:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Cheers,

~Dave

-- 

Dave Silvester
Rent-A-Monkey Website Development
Web: http://www.rentamonkey.com/

Tesla wrote:
> I am finding the installation process for Rails a bit confusing. First 
> of all I want to use:
> 
> Windows 2000
> Apache 1.3+
> MySQL
> 
> The above is accomplished with WAMP5 from wampserver.com
> 
> The problem is that there is no complete step-by-step for installation 
> in this enviroment. The wiki instructions hop around from One-click to 
> Apache.conf and other items. Installing CGI support for languages on 
> Apache under windows is not that hard as long as you get the right 
> components and install them in the right order. The wiki does not give 
> you any of this and finding and gathering information from other sources 
> is just as difficult (the fastCGI site is terrible). Especially the part 
> where the installation of Rails is left over to Ruby Gems and installing 
> Ruby Gems is left to one-click installer.
> 
> Part of the reason PHP is so popular is that setting up a dev machine is 
> simple. Even a manual installation takes only a few minutes following 
> the steps provided in the docs. Can the installation of Rails be made as 
>  good or better?
> 
> Tesla
This is what I have so far. Anyone have anything to add before I do some 
testing and change the wiki entry?

Requirements

Apache Webserver

This instructional is based on the use of windows as a development 
environment for Apache2 and Ruby on Rails. So it is assumed the 
webserver of choice is Apache2 of one version or another. You may 
install Apache2 on windows or you may use any of the following Apache2 
install packages.

Apache2Triad
Wamp5
Xampp
Uniform Web server

Database server

In most cases the above webserver packages include one or several 
opensource database servers. It is just a matter of choosing one that 
applies to you situation. In cases where the database server is not a 
typical one, refer to that softwares documentation for instructions on 
installation to windows.

Ruby progamming environment

Ruby one-click installer - A self-contained installer that includes the 
Ruby language, dozens of popular extensions, a syntax-highlighting 
editor and the book "Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer''s 
Guide". Platforms: Windows NT/2000/XP, (OS X in development).

Optional server software

FastCGI and other software may be necessary in order to emulate a 
production server as closely as possible.

Installing the Apache2 webserver

Install the Apache2 webserver according to the instructions in your 
choice of webserver package. In most cases this is just a single click 
on the installer icon and setting the paths to where you want things. 
Using FastCGI

The use of Fast CGI to deliver Rails applications can increase speed 
through in-memory caching. Place the fast CGI dll in a folder used for 
Apache modules in your webserver installation (check the software docs) 
and configure httpd.conf by adding this line to the module section:

LoadModule fastcgi_module [path to the dll 
file]mod_fastcgi-2.4.2-AP20.dll Here''s an example of what you should
see
in your httpd.conf file.

LoadModule php5_module "i:/wamp/php/php5apache.dll"
LoadModule fastcgi_module "i:/wamp/fastcgi/mod_fastcgi-2.4.2-AP20.dll 
Using mod_ruby

This is not recommended when using Rails. Rails is independant and does 
not need mod_ruby to run.Mod_ruby is an alternative way of using Ruby to 
create web applications. You can use mod_ruby as CGI and have web pages 
containing Ruby code interpreted natively by Apache2. Mod_ruby does not 
have the set MVC that Rails uses and many other tools that make quick 
work of creating a web application. It might be best if you decide to 
use mod_ruby to stop at this point and not install rubyonrails. This is 
because we are trying to get a development server going that is similar 
to a web hosting enviroment and not many web hosts are going to use both 
mod_ruby and rubyonrails. There is also the fact that a *.dll for 
windows use of mod_ruby to this date does not exist. Mod_ruby 
installation would include compiling under windows using cygwin and 
other tools. This probably accounts for a good portion of the popularity 
of RubyOnRails.

Ruby for Apache

RubyforApache is an installer package for fastCGI and mod_ruby which 
takes the place of doing a manual installation of each module. This 
package use Linux *.so (shared object) files and is compatible with 
Apache2 only. Despite the name which does not take into account Apache 
1.3+ is still the defacto webserver on Linux web hosting. Again take 
warning that if you install mod_ruby you should not use RubyOnRails.



Setting up Ruby, Ruby Gems and Rails

Here is where the fun begins: Run the "Ruby one-click 
installer":http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/ and follow the 
instructions accordingly. open CMD (Start > Run > type in: cmd) then 
find your installation of ruby C:webserverrubybin> gem update 
C:webserverrubybin> gem install rails --include-dependencies These 
commands may take a long time, just be patient. C:webserverrubybin> 
rails C:/apache2triad/htdocs/appname

Configuring the Apache2 webserver

Find Apache2 conf file. In most cases the webserver package has set a 
link in the program listings of windows or a shortcut on your destop. 
But you can also find the file by surfing the file system for a path 
like this example: C:/apache2triad/conf/httpd.conf. All the way at the 
end of file (so it is easy to find later on) place this follow code:

  ################################# # RUBY SETUP 
################################# Listen [port number] ServerName 
appname DocumentRoot "C:/apache2triad/htdocs/appname/public" ErrorLog 
"C:/apache2triad/logs/apache.log" Options ExecCGI FollowSymLinks 
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi AllowOverride all Order allow,deny Allow from 
all ################################# # RUBY SETUP 
################################# Where all the fun points to: 
"http://localhost:[port number]":http://localhost:[port number]



Have fun and good luck!!


Watch these lessons :

Rails for Windows, lesson 1 - Simple setup under win32 [some may need to 
replace “ruby script\new_controller Hello index” in this lesson by “ruby 
script\generate controller Hello index” for it to work] – Hope this 
helps.]—Also for win32, “public/ruby dispatch.servlet—a” is now called 
from the app root as “ruby script/server”


Rails for Windows, lesson 2 - XAMPP install, db usage

Rails for Windows, lesson 3 - Apache setup

Rails for Windows, lesson 4 - IRB

Rails for Windows, lesson 5 - Logging



Recommended tools:

Ruby for Windows I recommend the latest stable version. People in irc 
report that 1.8.2 pre versions seem to work, though.

Ruby gems You will need gems to install rails. The latest stable 
version(s) of Ruby for Windows include rubygems.

Ruby For Apache One-click installer of mod_fastcgi and mod_ruby.

Scite A very good win32 text editor (comes with the Ruby for Windows 
installer) More on Scite.

Tesla,

Your efforts are appreciated.  Please keep at it.

Steve

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Good to see someone clean this up somewhat. I have dropped using apache
on my dev machine, and resided to only use WEBrick, which has simplified
the installation quite a bit. And the one-click-installer really does
help. Also being able to set up rails via one command is also not too
difficult.

I have set up my production server on Linux, using apache2 and fastcgi,
and I had some struggles with fastcgi before I got to run properly. The
tip here is to be sure to set the rights properly for the fastcgi temp
area (as far as I can remember the wiki settings weren''t good enough in
my case).

BTW: Talking about LAMP... I''d like to introduce another acronym for
development environments. In my dreams the Windows development setup
should be the "WARP" environment: Windows - Apache - Ruby - Postgres.
This is a fully open-sourced and free setup. (Except for the Windows
license part though..) I used to do MySQL+PHP work, and I am now moving
into Postgres+Ruby/Rails. So WARP seems natural to me :)

That is - on Linux that''d be: LARP. Hmmm, sounds better for Windows ;)

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
/*Ronny Hanssen*/
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