Madison Rails
RoR Installation Cheat Sheet

Installation Cheat Sheet

Recently updated 9/12/2008

1) “Before you even become a Rails Dummy” go to the RoR site and get yer read on with Start At The Beginning

Finding Ruby on Rails

If you need to set up Ruby and you’re new to the whole thing, you’ll need some TLC, a good back-up of all your stuff, and an experienced RoR friend. If you’re brave and don’t mind giving it a try, keep reading. We, the Madison Rails peeps , will not be responsible for your botched installation. However, we’re a nice bunch of folks and like helping newbies so we’d recommend attending a Code and Coffee meeting before you start playing on the command line for the first time.

2)Install Ruby, Rails, WEBrick, Mongrel, etc,

Go find a nice RoR installation and download it. There are all kinds of ways to do this, here are a few:

Go to the source: Ruby on Rails How-To Guides If you don’t find what you’re looking for there, try these …
For PC users, check out Instant Rails or XAMPP for Windows (XAMPP will require a bit more tweaking to get it to work)
For Mac newbies, Dan Benjamin’s got a handful of great tutorials The 1st one One for Tiger and Another for Leopard to get you up-and-running with Ruby on Rails but it’s not for the faint of heart. Kids, be sure to get your parents permission before proceeding.
There is also an XAMPP kit for Mac OSX
For Linux users, also check out XAMPP for Linux

3) Start your localhost

On the Mac, you’ll be using Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal)
On Windows, you’ll be using CMD (Start > Run > CMD)
Type the following code into the command line or C:\> (it’s what the smart kids call the c prompt).

Usually Ruby on Rails runs off of Mongrel or WeBRICK LiteHTTP local servers routed to port 3000. This is standard. Advanced users will probably set-up virtual hosts in their Apache config (for now, don’t worry about it).

First, you’ll need to navigate to the directory in which your Rails App is installed. Mine’s on the root of my hard drive so I do the following on my crappy PC:

cd \rails_projects\NameOfMyApp

... hit enter, then type …

ruby script/server

It may take a few seconds but once your server has started, you can open your web browser and go to: http://localhost:3000

BAM! You’re Riding the Rails!

If you’re working on multiple RoR apps at the same time (‘cause you’re working on multiple projects or demos) you’ll need to run them on separate ports. Don’t ask what this means, just do this by opening a new Terminal window and type the following:

ruby script/server -p 3001

Now your “other” Ruby app will be available via the following URL: http://localhost:3001 Your Mongrel or WEBrick servers are currently running, so you’ll need to keep these Terminal or CMD windows open. If you close them, you’re toast and you’ll need to start over with a new CMD or Terminal windows and run the following command again (for each port you are running).

ruby script/server