Tracy Phillips

Setting up Ruby on Rails using FreeBSD has to be one of the most dead simple things (/me knocks on wood) that you can get setup.

First you will need to have Ruby installed. If you have been following along in our Setting up FreeBSD series this was done for you when you installed portupgrade. If you don’t just use portinstall ruby and then you will be up to speed with us.

With Ruby installed, the next step is to install Ruby Gems

[server][root][~]# portinstall ruby18-gems

Next we will want to install the rails gem with Ruby Gems.

[server][root][~]# gem install rails --include-dependencies

Whew that was hard :) Ruby on Rails is now setup. Next we will go through the process of setting up a Ruby on Rails blog application… I think Typo would fit the bill don’t you?

Rails Server Setup:

Part 1: New Server Setup
Part 2: Setup FreeBSD 6.x
Part 3: FreeBSD Usability
Part 4: Setup FreeBSD To Use Blowfish
Part 5: Install and Setup PostgreSQL
Part 6: Install Lighttpd on FreeBSD
Part 7: Install MySQL 5.x on FreeBSD
Part 8: Install Ruby On Rails with FreeBSD

I am going through the process of switching from a Linux server (CentOS to be exact) running DirectAdmin as the control panel to a FreeBSD server with no control panel for management. Since I do not have to build within the constraints of some other company’s control panel, I thought I would install the best of breed servers and applications.

The main components that I require to be installed are:

PostgreSQL
Lighttpd
Ruby On Rails
Subversion
Postfix
Dovecot
Dspam

I will most likely do some more tweaking but at the moment that is the standard I wish to build against. I know for a fact that I will do some more “tweaking” such as setting up DNS RBLS, SPF, and maybe even Yahoo Domain Keys along with some good old postfix filtering for spam (can you tell I hate spam).
The fist thing that I will get to (hopefully in the next post) will be setting up FreeBSD 6 and getting it ready to install applications onto.

Rails Server Setup:

Part 1: New Server Setup
Part 2: Setup FreeBSD 6.x
Part 3: FreeBSD Usability
Part 4: Setup FreeBSD To Use Blowfish
Part 5: Install and Setup PostgreSQL
Part 6: Install Lighttpd on FreeBSD
Part 7: Install MySQL 5.x on FreeBSD
Part 8: Install Ruby On Rails with FreeBSD

It looks like Ruby on Rails is getting large enough to have its own conference.
RailsConf 2006
Rails seems to be raising some eyebrows in the Java communty as well. Ruby the Rival over at OnJava.com is an inteview with four Java “luminaries” about the possible impact of Ruby on Rails in the enterprise. Some of them are even taking the time to sip on a glass of Kool-Aid.