Deploy Rails 3 with Phusion Passenger on Ubuntu WITH ALL GEMS INCLUDED

Question

I need to deploy a Rails 3/Phusion Passenger/Apache2 app to an Ubuntu 12.04 server without installing ANY gems on the server.

I can install any Debian packages.

How can I include all needed gems (including Rails, a couple of gems installed from git projects on github, and a bunch of regular gems installed from rubygems.org) inside my project so that, after deployment, Passenger will find Rails and all the gems and be happy?

(I know many people will probably be curious WHY I would want to do this. I can't talk about that, unfortunately. Sorry.)

Here are some things that have not worked. One of them might work if revised a little, I don't know:

Failed method 1:

1. On Ubuntu 12.04 dev machine. Ruby 1.9.3. Bundler 1.3.5. bundle package --all. Git commit.
2. On Ubuntu 12.04 server machine (gem installation from Internet not possible). Deploy project files and install packages (apache2, ruby1.9.3, ruby-bundler, rubygems, libapache2-mod-passenger which brings ruby1.8 with it). bundle -v gives Bundler version 1.0.15 (from ruby-bundler package). Make sure .bundle/config file from dev machine is also deployed. bundle install --local tries to download git gems from github, so fail.

Answer 1

Try using bundle package --all, which should save your gems into ./vendor/cache. You could also unpack the gems on your local environment with gem unpack --target vendor to save them in the vendor directory. Then you can give a location in the Gemfile so that your application can find the gems. Can you just not use the network to install gems, or are you really not allowed to install gems in any way?

Sources: 1, 2

Answer 2

Try using the pkgr tool, which can convert your Rails app and all dependencies into a single installable Debian package.

Answer 3

• Download the bundler 1.3.5 gem from http://rubygems.org/downloads/bundler-1.3.5.gem and put it in vendor/

• In an Ubuntu 12.04 vm, do bundle package --all. Git commit and push.

• Clone on the Ubuntu server.

• apt-get install each of apache2, ruby1.9.3, etc. (not rubygems or ruby-bundler. Both provide an old version of Rubygems and Bundler. A newer version of rubygems is included in the ruby1.9.3 package.)

• Follow ALL of the instructions in section 2.3 at http://www.modrails.com/documentation/Users%20guide%20Apache.html#install_on_debian_ubuntu

• Make sure you have the right Ruby and Rubygems versions set to the ruby and gem commands:

update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/ruby ruby /usr/bin/ruby1.9.3 200 update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/gem gem /usr/bin/gem1.9.3 200

(Phusion Passenger doesn't care about this, but it's probably a good idea for the gems we are about to install and for debugging stuff with the Rails console or whatever in the future.)

• gem install --local vendor/bundler-1.3.5.gem

• bundle install --local

• Set up all your other Apache config...

• service apache2 restart