How to install Apache, Ruby, RubyGems, Rails, and FastCGI? under Linux
- Become root and go to a directory to work in
su root cd /usr/local/src - Download all of the needed files. These versions may be out of date, so you might want to go find the latest.
wget http://xyz.lcs.mit.edu/ruby/ruby-1.8.2.tar.gz wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/3700/rubygems-0.8.10.tgzwget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gzwget http://www.fastcgi.com/dist/mod_fastcgi-2.4.2.tar.gzwget http://mirrors.ccs.neu.edu/Apache/dist/httpd/httpd-2.0.53.tar.gz- Install Ruby
tar -zxvf ruby-1.8.2.tar.gz cd ruby-1.8.2 ./configuremakemake testmake installcd ..- Install Ruby Gems
tar -zxvf rubygems-0.8.10.tgz cd rubygems-0.8.10ruby setup.rb : Install required dependency rake? [Yn] yInstall required dependency activesupport? [Yn] yInstall required dependency activerecord? [Yn] yInstall required dependency actionpack? [Yn] yInstall required dependency actionmailer? [Yn] yInstall required dependency actionwebservice? [Yn] y :cd ..- Install Apache (if needed—if you have an existing Apache installation & know what you are doing this step can be skipped)
tar -zxvf httpd-2.0.53.tar.gz cd httpd-2.0.53 ./configure --enable-rewrite --enable-cgimakemake installcd ..- Install FastCGI?
tar -zxvf fcgi-2.4.0.tar.gz cd fcgi-2.4.0 ./configuremakemake install- Install mod_fastcgi for Apache (note that this assumes you are using Apache-2.x, etc.; if you are using Apache 1.3, DSOs, etc. read the INSTALL file.
- If you are on the Debian platform and you installed Apache2 via apt-get, here are some Debian mod_fastcgi Notes
- If you are using Fedora Core and you installed Apache2 with yum and/or an RPM, see this blog post:
http://jimthompson.org/wp/2005/05/29/building-modfastcgi-for-apache2/cd .. tar -zxvf mod_fastcgi-2.4.2.tar.gzcd mod_fastcgi-2.4.2cp Makefile.AP2 Makefilemakemake install
- Install Rails
gem install rails - Install the fcgi gem
gem install fcgi
On FreeBSD, If you receive “ERROR: While executing gem” stating “checking for fcgiapp.h… no” then you will have to run the gem install with alternate syntax:gem install fcgi -- --with-fcgi-include=/usr/local/include --with-fcgi-lib=/usr/local/lib - Edit your Apache configuration (typically found somewhere like
/usr/local/apache2/conf/httpd.confor/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf) and add these lines:<Directory /var/www/> AllowOverride all</Directory>LoadModule fastcgi_module modules/mod_fastcgi.soAddHandler fastcgi-script .fcgi<VirtualHost *:80>ServerAdmin webmaster@example.comDocumentRoot /var/www/rails/testapp/publicServerName www.example.comErrorLog /var/log/httpd/testapp-error_logCustomLog /var/log/httpd/testapp-access_log commonOptions Indexes ExecCGI FollowSymLinks RewriteEngine On</VirtualHost>- Start Apache
/usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start - Go to http://www.example.com and see the Rails welcome page.
- Set up a database for Rails in database.yml (or see HowToUseRailsWithoutADatabase).
- Create a simple controller for testing Rails
cd /var/www/rails/testapp/public rm index.htmlcd ..script/generate controller home index- Go to www.example.com/home/index and see a default view, running with normal cgi.
- Enable FastCGI?
- Edit
/var/www/rails/testapp/public/.htaccessand changedispatch.*cgi*todispatch.*fcgi* - Edit
/var/www/rails/testapp/public/dispatch.fcgi(in rails 0.13.1 this is within the rails installation:lib/fcgi_handler.rb) and changerequire 'fcgi'
torequire 'rubygems' require_gem 'fcgi'
- Edit
- Go to www.example.com/home/index and see a default view again, but with fcgi
Troubleshooting Suggestions
Make sure that you delete any ruby session files in your /tmp directory before switching to dispatch.fcgi. If you tested with cgi, there might be some with different permission that what apache (fastcgi) can read and will cause issue.
If you want to see if fastcgi is working with ruby, try pasting the following into test.fcgi (in your rails/public dir). You will need to make sure the file has 755 permissions (chmod 755 test.fcgi).
#!/usr/local/bin/ruby require 'cgi' require 'rubygems' require_gem 'fcgi' FCGI.each_cgi do |cgi| content = '' env = [] cgi.env_table.each do |k,v| env << [k,v] end env.sort! env.each do |k,v| content << %Q(#{k} => #{v}<br>\n) end cgi.out{content} end
The above test was working but I didn´t get the dispatcher running under apache2 (self built) until i changed the dependencies of rails-0.14.1/lib/fcgi_handler.rb to:
require 'cgi' require 'rubygems' require_gem 'fcgi' require 'logger' require 'dispatcher' require 'rbconfig' class RailsFCGIHandler ...
I don´t know why this is like this (why the dependencies in the dispatcher should be wrong) but it helped.
I’ve been bitten by two things with the Apache configuration: I had MultiViews on, and I was redirecting /some/url.html to /some/url because I don’t want file extensions in my URLs. The second rule causes endless redirect looping with standard Rails’ .htaccess, and MultiViews interferes badly with Rails’ caching. So, keep MultiViews off, and be careful with those redirects. —Matijs van Zuijlen
I have yet to get Apache fcgi working Windows XP SP2. I’ve got Apache working with Rails but it’s slow as mud. I’ve downloaded all the software that I can find and put in the http.conf file the recommended Apache configuration but can’t tell if fcgi is working or not.
Does anyone have a simple step by step recipe to get Apache (v2) on Windows XP Prof running fcgi? I found a test page for Rails but it doesn’t render the link
<html> <head> <title>Ajax Demo</title> <%= javascript_include_tag "prototype" %> </head> <body> <h1>What time is it?</h1> <div id="time_div"> I don't have the time, but <%= link_to_remote( "click here", :update => "time_div", :url =>{ :action => :say_when }) %> and I will look it up. </div> </body> </html>
I get the page minus the “click here” link????
For anyone trying to get fastcgi working after installing the gem version of the ruby fastcgi lib, I found uninstalling it, then loading the library version and building it, fixed all problems. Download from here http://raa.ruby-lang.org/project/fcgi/ read the README and build and install, and fastcgi starts working.