RVM gem permissions error

Question

I started trying to set up a local rails installation for development. After I installed in using apt-get, however, I learned about RVM, so I removed the earlier one, and reinstalled from RVM. It looks like I have residual problems, though. Specifically, when I try to install rails I get...

$ gem install rails
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
    You don't have write permissions into the /var/lib/gems/1.9.1 directory.

This already looks like a problem, because I don't want it to be in the /var/ directory, I want it to be in the user directory. So, I check the following...

$ gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.8.11
  - RUBY VERSION: 1.9.3 (2011-10-30 patchlevel 0) [x86_64-linux]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /var/lib/gems/1.9.1
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /usr/bin/ruby1.9.1
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/local/bin
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
    - ruby
    - x86_64-linux
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /var/lib/gems/1.9.1
     - /home/myusername/.gem/ruby/1.9.1
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :benchmark => false
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - http://rubygems.org/

As well as sudo'd:

$ sudo gem env
RubyGems Environment:
  - RUBYGEMS VERSION: 1.8.11
  - RUBY VERSION: 1.9.3 (2011-10-30 patchlevel 0) [x86_64-linux]
  - INSTALLATION DIRECTORY: /var/lib/gems/1.9.1
  - RUBY EXECUTABLE: /usr/bin/ruby1.9.1
  - EXECUTABLE DIRECTORY: /usr/local/bin
  - RUBYGEMS PLATFORMS:
    - ruby
    - x86_64-linux
  - GEM PATHS:
     - /var/lib/gems/1.9.1
     - /home/myusername/.gem/ruby/1.9.1
  - GEM CONFIGURATION:
     - :update_sources => true
     - :verbose => true
     - :benchmark => false
     - :backtrace => false
     - :bulk_threshold => 1000
  - REMOTE SOURCES:
     - http://rubygems.org/

gems seem to live in /var/lib for some reason. Is this normal? How can I fix this so I can install the rails gem?

EDIT: UPDATE!

It appears to me that I have gems installed twice, once in /var/lib/gems/1.9.91 (bad) and once in /home/myusername/.gem/ruby/1.9.1 (good).

I think what is happening here is that when I type "gem" the installation in /var/lib/gems/1.9.1 (bad) is taking priority over /home/myusername/.gem/ruby/1.9.1 (good). Can anyone confirm that? Also, would it be OK and fix things just to delete the bad directory, or would that cause problems?

Someone will probably need an ls -la /var/lib/gems/1.9.1 from the command line to figure out the current permissions on the directory. Also perhaps whoami to see the current user. — buley
Permissions are 755, but I think the issue is that I'd rather have this installed outside of var, right? var ought to be owned by root. Shouldn't this only be located in the home/username directory? — Mittenchops

mpapis mpapis · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-19T00:07:46

You missed to use ruby, you can do it with:

rvm use 1.9.3 --install

In case 1.9.3 was not installed, this command will also install it!

It also looks you are using Ubuntu, make sure you are not using RVM from Ubuntu package - that thing is broken! You can find instruction how to fix it here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/9056395/497756

RVM gem permissions error

1 Answers